


Escape From Tomorrow

by Gryph



Category: Planet of the Apes (TV)
Genre: Gen, episode novelization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryph/pseuds/Gryph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Novelization of the pilot episode, script written by Art Wallace. Astronauts Alan Virdon and Pete Burke crash land a thousand years in Earth's future, which is ruled by intelligent apes—chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas. The ape government considers them a threat to ape society, and they become fugitives along with a friendly chimp Galen. This version of also contains some original material.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you've seen the episode, there is some original material in the story (as always).

_T-plus twenty-eight days—August 19, 1980_

Deep in space, a ship tumbled out of control. The three men inside it, already unconscious or worse, were explorers sent from a small blue-green world to investigate a planet circling their nearest celestial neighbor. The two stars of the Alpha Centauri system, one slightly larger and brighter than Earth’s Sun, the other slightly smaller and about half the luminosity, danced around each other in a wide spiral.

Around the larger star slowly orbited one rocky planet just slightly larger than Earth. Although Earth-bound telescopes had discovered the existence of the terrestrial planet, only closer investigation would reveal if the conditions on it were compatible with life. That was the mission of the _Hyperion_ , to survey the planet, propelled to their destination by a new engine that broke the barrier of light speed.

But something had gone wrong. Man in his hubris believed that he could somehow tame the wilderness of space. Even after accidents that had killed entire crews, missions that were lost in the darkness, they continued to press on, thinking they understood the dangers. But the infinity of the universe held anomalies that they couldn’t begin to imagine. Places where space itself folded and twisted, where time was so distorted that a lifetime could pass in the blink of an eye or so slowly as to seem to stop. Places where the reality of this universe thinned, allowing other alternate realities to bleed through. Such was the stuff of nightmares.

Yet, they continued to throw themselves into the Void in the name of exploration.

Inside the ship, the three men were oblivious to the blaring sirens and screeching of stressed metal as the command module, designed to be a life pod in the event of a catastrophic failure, separated from the rest of the ship. They also didn’t see the small, unobtrusive chronometer where the numbers flickered and changed faster than a human eye could follow.

******

The old man slept beneath a tree in the afternoon sun. Beside him, a basket held several pieces of fruit and some root vegetables. His long, white hair was tied in a loose ponytail, and a slight breeze ruffled his tattered, homespun shirt.

The quiet of the idyllic scene was broken by the distant sound of a barking dog. The old man’s eyelids fluttered, then popping open suddenly as the barking grew louder. A look of terror crossed his face as he sat up, his head whipping back and forth trying to discern the direction of the sound. A child’s voice rose over the barking.

“Get him, dog! Go get him!” the child cried out, excited. “Go get him!”

The old man scrambled to his feet and hurried to the base of the tree, his bounty from the morning forgotten. He started to climb the thick trunk just as a large dog came running down the path. When he reached a large fork high in the branches, he hunched in the V, his breath coming in harsh pants. The dog reached the tree and clawed at the trunk, barking and growling.

“Get him dog! Get him!” Down the path in the dog’s wake ran a child, maybe eleven or twelve years old. But instead of human, the child was an ape—a male chimpanzee. His pale face was dominated by a large muzzle and prominent eyebrow ridge. A ruff of dark brown fur surrounding his face also covered the rest of his head and disappeared into the high collar of his green tunic. He wore brown pants and brown shoes that had a split between the first and second toes. His gait as he ran was almost like a wide-stanced hop, but it ate up the ground quickly.

“What’d you find, huh? What? Did you get him?” the child asked his pet as he arrived where the dog continued to bark up the tree. He stepped back and peered at the quarry they had cornered. When he saw the old man, his face fell. “All right, dog, that’s enough. That’s enough, I said!”

With a last couple of barks, the dog returned obediently to his master. “It’s only a human,” the boy said as he patted and rubbed the dog affectionately.

The old man tilted his head, not daring to hope that the young ape was going to leave without bothering him any further. Even an ape child could cause a lot of trouble for a human who was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. If the boy decided to order him to climb down, he wasn’t sure what he would do. The punishment for disobeying an ape would be more severe than the beating he would get for being outside the village without permission.

The boy opened his mouth to say something to the old man, but whatever it was remained unspoken. A wind started to blow, accompanied by a loud whining noise that quickly grew to a deafening sound. The leaves and debris on the forest floor flew into their faces as the wind turned into a gale-force tempest. Clutching at his whimpering dog, but ape child was blown off his feet. The old man wrapped his arms around the tree trunk and held on as the blast threatened to toss him from his perch. The screeching ended with a crashing boom, and even from a distance, they felt the earth shake with the impact.

The ape boy recovered first and took off with his dog in the direction of the noise. Once they were gone, the old man climbed down from the shelter of the tree. He followed the boy from a safe distance as he scampered across the litter of the forest floor. He scrambled up a small rise to break through the wall of foliage at the top; he crouched as he looked out into a wide clearing.

“Come on, dog,” he heard from a few feet to his left, and then the snap and crackle of the boy and dog retreating back into the forest.

He crept cautiously into the clearing, his eyes wide at the sight before him. A blackened furrow gouged through the earth trailed away into the distance. At the near end of the trail rested a triangular craft, smoking and clicking as the metal skin cooled. The front point of the ship was half-buried in the dirt; wings flared out on either side toward the rear of the craft. A large window was inset across the front, but it was darkened to opacity.

The old man circled the craft, his mouth still hanging open in wonder. The back of the ship was a smooth oval, made of a mysterious material that was neither metal or rock. Stepping over the ridges of earth, he continued around until he reached the wing on the other side.

He stretched a hand tentatively toward the wing. The surface was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Although it looked like metal, the skin of the ship was made of something else, smooth like some of the stones he’d found in his secret cave. Running both hands over the wing, he marveled at the feel. He heard a beeping sound and startled as he looked for the source of the new noise. It seemed to be coming from a small panel on the back of the wing; sliding back the hatch exposed a small glowing button. He brushed it with his fingers.

He jumped back as the beeping sound intensified. On the top of the ship, a rectangular section slowly lifted into the air. The old man scurried backward, looking anxiously around as he considered whether to flee. When he saw that nothing was coming out of the ship, he took a few tentative steps toward it. He peered around again, then curiosity overcame wariness. Climbing up onto the wing, he stuck his head through the opening and stared in wonder at what he saw.

Panels of lights and buttons covered the walls and even the ceiling of the interior compartment. Three men were strapped into large padded chairs, their bodies sagging against the restraints. The cacophony of whirring, chirping, and beeping filled his ears. He crept down the three steps into the ship, ready to bolt. When he push one of the glowing red buttons, the noise level dropped considerable, causing him to startle again. He turned toward the three men.

They wore strange clothes—white pants and jackets so finely woven that the material was smooth and slick under his fingers. Even their boots seemed to be made of the same stuff. The first man slumped in the chair, his eyes open and head lolling at an unnatural angle. The old man grabbed a handful of the short, dark hair and lifted the other’s head. The sightless stare of his unblinking blue eyes was familiar; the old man had seen enough lifeless bodies to recognize death. But still, to be sure, he pushed a hand under the strap over the man’s chest and felt for signs of life. No heartbeat. No slight rise and fall that would signal breathing. With a sad shake of his head, he gently released the stranger’s hair.

The next man was blond, with his chin resting on his chest. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a cut above one closed eye. As he lifted the man’s head, the other’s mouth fell open with a gusty exhalation. He wedged a hand under the straps then smiled at the strong, regular rhythm against his palm.

He moved onto the final passenger, another dark-haired man. A quick examination revealed that he was alive as well. But if the two strange humans were going to _stay_ alive, the old man was going to have to get them out of the ship and somewhere safe immediately. The ape child was no doubt on his way to alert others of his kind. And once the apes arrived, he knew their first action would be to kill the strangers.

He would take them to his secret cave. But first, he had to figure out how to get them out of the strange bindings that held them in place. He drew the knife from it’s sheath strapped hidden against his calf. Another thing that if the apes knew about would be cause for swift and severe punishment. He sawed through the straps that looked like fabric, but were tougher than thick leather.

There, the dark-haired survivor was free. He maneuvered the limp body out of the chair, wincing as the man’s head smacked lightly on the floor and left a red smear that matched the one on the headrest.

He had to hurry; the apes could return at any moment.

 ******

The ape boy Arno ran until he felt as if his lungs would burst. His dog trotted beside him, easily keeping pace, jumping and barking as he sensed his owner’s agitation and excitement. Arno’s father was Prefect of the nearby village where they lived, a human work camp that raised grain and other crops to send into the cities.

Arno missed the city. When his father had been reassigned to this remote farming village only a few months ago, Arno had been forced to leave his friends, his school, everything he had known his whole life to move here. The only other children around were _humans_ —stupid ones at that. There was no school, just the tutor that his father had brought with them. And old Xander was no fun. Which left Dog as his only companion and playmate.

But finally something interesting had happened! He was the first one to find the thing that had fallen from the sky, so as far as he was concerned, he had the right to explore it.

The first corrals surrounding the village came into view. The cows moved about restlessly in their pens, lowing loudly for attention. Two saddled horses tied to a hitching post stamped and whickered nervously. And outside the Prefect’s complex, the humans gathered and talked among themselves in urgent whispers, occasionally casting a fearful glance skyward. Animals always reacted badly to loud noises, Arno thought.

He pushed through the crowd of milling humans, with Dog barking at several of them to get out of the way. As he hurried up to the barred gate, he nodded at the armed guard, who immediately pushed the barrier open to admit him. Dressed in the leather uniform of a soldier, the gorilla wrinkled his muzzle as Dog scurried in behind the boy; dogs were rare enough in this world that they were still objects of suspicion to many apes.

“Father! Father!” Arno ran into his father’s office, oblivious to the two gorillas who conversed with the older chimpanzee.

“Not now, Arno!” Veska waved his son away.

But Arno was determined to be heard. “But, Father!” He elbowed his way up to the desk and slapped his hand on it. “I saw a metal machine fall from the sky!”

The three older apes immediately fell silent. Arno looked around smugly, pleased that the adults were listening to _him_ for a change.

Veska turned his head slightly so he could see his son clearly with his good eye; the left one was covered with a large patch, hiding a ruined orb from a childhood accident. He tugged at the hem of his green tunic. “What are you talking about, Arno?”

Arno rolled his eyes. Adults could be _so_ dense sometimes! “The roar—surely you must have heard it here in the village. It was made be a giant machine that fell from the sky. It left a blackened trench behind it, like a plow making a furrow. And smoke was coming off it.” The boy pointed over his shoulder. “In the clearing east of here, the one between the road and the forest. “

The gorillas shifted nervously, but Veska glowered at the boy. “You didn’t go near it, did you?”

“No, Father. I came right back here to tell you about it.”

Veska turned to Turvo, the soldier with a white stripe on his uniform that designated him a lieutenant. “Prepare the horses. Arno will show us where this machine is.”

 ******

The old man tugged the blond-haired stranger up the stairs inside the ship, struggling in the confined space to maneuver the limp body toward the opening. Two chairs now stood empty; the dark-haired survivor was already moved to safety. If he had time before the apes arrived, the old man would come back for the body of the dead man and bury him in the forest.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. The strangers were heavy, and he had already carried one of them deep into the forest. He could feel his muscles quiver with fatigue as he pulled the blond man out onto the wing of the craft. He jumped down onto the blackened ground and cocked his head to listen. The distance sound of hoofbeats quickened his pulse. Horses were coming. And only apes road horses.

He shouldered the man’s bulky form and scurried as fast as he could toward the treeline, trying to keep the ship between him and the road where the horse sounds were growing steadily louder. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging and blurring his sight.

He slipped and slid down the grassy berm, trying desperately to balance his burden. When he reached flat ground, he leaned the body up against a tree and returned to crouch in the cover of the undergrowth. Four horses arrived in a cloud of dust.

Three of the apes were gorilla soldiers, each with a rifle stowed in a long holster next to his saddle. The fourth horse carried a pair of chimpanzees; he recognized the older male with a patch across one eye as the Prefect and the boy who had chased him earlier. He watched them dismount and enter the ship before withdrawing.

He hunkered down in front of the white-clad stranger for a few moments to catch his breath. Then he slung the man onto his shoulders again and continued into the forest.

******

_T-plus seventeen days—August 8, 1980_

Major Peter Burke swiveled his chair toward Major Stephen Jones, as the latter worked at a computer. Colonel Alan Virdon, mission commander, was sleeping in another part of the ship. “So what happens if we send the probe down there, and it lands in the middle of a city full of happy, smiling aliens?”

“Probe’s not going to land, Jif. It’s just going to take readings and do a flyover.” Jones looked up from the monitor with a suspicious glare. “You know that.”

Burke shrugged. Jones was the mission specialist in charge of the equipment that would investigate the planet around Alpha Centauri A, dubbed _Centauri Prime_ by the scientist who discovered it. “I know it’s not _supposed_ to land. But what happens if the aliens put a tractor beam on it and pull it down?” He eyes widened with mock fear. “What if they throw a tractor beam on us and drag us down? I don’t want to have a close encounter of the third kind!”

Jones shook his head and returned his attention to his task. “How many times have you seen that movie exactly?”

“I don’t know, a couple or three…dozen.” He grinned mischievously. “Seriously though, do we have some sort of protocol if we are contacted? Talking to aliens is way above my pay grade. Unless they are green-skinned, scantily-clad, dancing aliens. Then, I’m definitely the man for a ‘first contact’ situation.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Jones chuckled. “I don’t know, man. Those Orion slave girls might be a little too much for even you to handle.”

“Look, just because you and Virdon are on short leashes doesn’t mean I can’t run in the park.”

“Talking about the things you can’t have is only going to make you miss them more,” Jones said wistfully. He missed his wife and daughter already, and they still had four and half months until they returned home. By the time he arrived back on Earth, he would be only two months away from being a father again. And Michelle was going to be pissed at him for missing most of the pregnancy.

“Nah,” Burke drawled, sitting back and lacing his hands together behind his head, “I’m glad to get away for a while. The last year has been _strenuous_ , y’know? It’s my duty to the program to generate positive press, to get people _excited_ about NASA again. But there’s only so much Pete Burke to go around. I need a rest.”

“And by getting ‘people’ excited, you mean ‘pretty young things between, say, twenty-five and thirty’, right?”

Burke clasped a hand to his chest with a wounded expression. “Ouch. You insult me, Jonesy. I’m not anywhere near that shallow.” He broke into a sudden grin. “I’d be willing to go as high as thirty-five.”

Jones barked a short bray of laughter and shook his head. “Someday, Jif, you are going to find the woman who can tame that wild streak right out of you.”

“And on that day, I will set a new land speed record in the opposite direction.” Burke rubbed his chin with one hand, a nervous gesture Jones recognized.

“Nah. You won’t know what hit you. Like a deer in the headlights.” He reached over his head and adjusted some controls on a panel. “Trust me on this. I speak from experience.”

Burke mulled that over for a moment, then his face lit up as he changed the subject abruptly. “Hey, wanna pull something on Virdon when he wakes up? I found the subroutine for the zero-grav toilet, and I had this great idea....”

 ******

Veska could see the path scorched into the earth long before they reached the alien machine. And a strange scent hung heavy in the air, like burnt bread. At his back, Arno clung to him, the boy’s arms tightening as they reined the horses to a stop.

The horses danced and snorted, reacting as much to the tension of their riders as to the foreign sights and smells. Two of the gorilla soldiers grunted, their heads swinging from side to side. Turvo, the gorilla with the white stripes on his uniform, leaned toward Veska.

“What is it, Prefect?” Turvo asked haltingly.

“I don’t know.”

Turvo twisted in his saddle toward the other two soldiers. “Keep your guns ready.”

With a small push from his father, Arno hopped off the back of the horse, landing lightly in the dirt. Veska and Turvo dismounted, leaving their rifles strapped to their horses. The other two gorillas remained mounted, guns drawn and ready as they’d been ordered.

Veska, Turvo and Arno approached the ship cautiously. With a nervous huff, Veska unenthusiastically declared, “I suppose we should go in.” He peered at the opening in the side of the craft, as if it were an entrance into a different world. Which in many ways, it was.

“Can I go too, Father?” Arno chirped immediately.

“No!”

Arno was not going to be left behind. “But I found it, didn’t I?” he pressed.

His father leaned down until their noses were almost touching. “I said no!”

Turning his attention back to Turvo, Veska pushed the gorilla towards the ship. “All right, let’s go. Go!”

Spurred by another small shove by Veska, the gorilla climbed onto the wing. He reached out to tentatively touch the hatch around the opening and paused a moment while he squinted into the darkened space. Veska pressed in behind him, and Turvo’s anger flared at the other’s impatience. Caution was called for in this bizarre situation. He scoffed that Veska’s notion of facing danger head-on was to hide behind someone else.

As his eyes adjusted to the change in lighting, Turvo gingerly descended the stairs. The interior had its own sources of illumination—button, panels and indicator lights all shown brightly in a myriad of colors. He walked to the far side of the small space, where a bank of glowing numbers caught his eye. Absently, he heard Veska enter behind him.

“He’s dead,” Veska said. Turvo turned as the chimpanzee stood over a male human whose fixed stare and flopping head told Turvo the same thing.

“It’s a human!” Arno’s voice exclaimed from behind them.

Both the older apes turned toward the sound and saw the boy sitting on the stairs. “I thought I told you to stay outside!” Veska growled harshly. But Arno was not daunted.

He pushed himself off the stairs and padded over between the two empty chairs. “And look, there are two more of them. I wonder where they are?”

“We’ll find them,” Turvo told the boy.

Veska advanced a half-step on his son, his tone urgent. “You’re not to say a word about this, you understand, Arno?”

Arno looked perplexed. “Why not, Father? It’s so exciting!” He looked around at the advanced technology covering the walls and even the ceiling. The gears were already turning in his head thinking about how much fun he could have playing in this wondrous place.

“It’s dangerous! Human’s know their places. That musn’t change.” He _had_ to make the boy understand the gravity of the situation. “If they were to found out that other humans could build and fly a machine like this, they’d begin to think they’re as good as we are!”

Arno shook his head, his confusion only deepening at his father’s words. This machine, the complexity of it, was like nothing he’d ever seen before. And if it had carried _humans_ and not _apes_.... “But, Father, look. These humans must be _better_ than we are.”

Veska’s darted forward and grabbed his son. He pulled him closer and locked a bruising grip around both the boy’s upper arms “You’re not to say such a thing again!” He shook him in counterpoint to his, ignoring the boys frightened whimpers. “You’re not even to _think_ it!” He pushed Arno away with a shove. The boy cowered, holding both arms in front of him to protect himself from another onslaught.

But Veska turned back to Turvo, who watched the exchange intently. “I want this body buried at once.” Then he slapped the back of his hand at Arno to shoo him toward the exit.

With a startled gasp, the boy bolted up the stairs and out of the incredible flying machine.

 ******

When he got close to the entrance to his secret cave, Farrow had to rest again. He lowered the blond man to the ground and practically collapsed against a large rock. His hands shook as the adrenalin from his near encounter with the apes leeched out of his system, leaving him feeling spent. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow and flicked away the sweat that threatened to run into his eyes. For the hundredth time, he looked at the unconscious stranger and wondered what mysteries he would reveal when he awoke.

Pushing himself off the rock with a grunt, Farrow noted the short distance to the break in the underbrush that covered his destination. He pressed both hands into the small of the back and stretched to relieve some of the ache that was settling into his old bones and muscles. With a nod, he reached down to grip the man’s wrists and began to pull him through the dry dirt the rest of the way to the cave.

The outer entrance was hewn from the rock, little more than a dug out notch into a cliff. Inside the depression, a metal door, pitted and worn but free from rust, stood propped open a few inches. Farrow hooked his foot in the gap and leaned his hip into the door to widen the opening until he could drag the man inside. He pulled him over onto a straw mat and pillow he had prepared. His dark-haired companion rested a few feet away on a matching pad. Farrow gently dropped the blond’s arms and rushed over to close the heavy steel door with a muted thud.

Farrow’s secret cave had walls built from large blocks of smooth stone, cut into regular rectangular shapes, all the same size. In places, holes marred the stone—in one section, the stone was crumbled in a pile in front of a fissure the size of a man, revealing native rock and the edges of the arm’s length thick wall. Farrow sometimes hid items in that crevice.

Scattered around the large space were remnants of its old contents. Rusted metal shelves that leaned drunkenly. A few rusted metal containers that Farrow couldn’t figure out a use for. Everything else had been scavenged. Cobwebs hung in huge clumps from every surface, even the rubble.

He fetched a pitcher of water he’d filled that morning and found a cloth, took both over to kneel next to the blond man. Blood caked the side of the stranger’s face, turning black around the edges as it dried, while the wound above his eye still oozed sluggishly. Farrow shoved the cloth down into the cool water then used it to wipe at the blood. The man didn’t move or rouse at all during his ministrations, even when Farrow grasped his chin and tilted his head to look for other injuries. He frowned and shook his head. That wasn’t a good sign. Usually cold water on the face was enough to rouse a man if he was simply asleep or even passed out. But since the stranger had taken a blow to the head, there was no way to tell when, or if, he would wake. Farrow had seen humans struck on the head with the butt of a gorilla’s rifle who never rose again.

He glanced at the other man with a sad look, willing them both to wake up. If nothing else, he wanted to hear the story of how they came to be in such an amazing flying machine.

He settled down to wait.

 ******

“If you ride fast, you should be in Central City by tomorrow morning.” Veska finished scribbling his signature on the piece of parchment, folded it, and pressed it into the hands of the gorilla. “Give this message to Chief Councillor Zaius. Hurry!” He slapped the rump of the gorilla’s horse to spur it into a gallop.

He spun toward Turvo. “I want a through search for the other two humans!” Turvo and the other gorilla wheeled their horses away.

Thinking that his father was preoccupied, Arno surreptitiously began to climb back onto the wing of the ship. “Arno, get off that thing!” his father shrieked at him before he even got both feet onto the metal surface. He hopped down with a sheepish look and chased the horse who’d been spooked by Veska’s harsh tone.


	2. Chapter 2

_T-plus five days—July 27, 1980_

“Titan Base, this is _Hyperion_. We are ready for final check before engaging FTL drive. Over.”

Burke’s gaze wandered from the instrument panel to the command module’s large windows. Saturn with its rings of rock and dust filled most of the view. Titan Base was their last check-in; once they activated Otto Hasslein’s new faster-than-light engine and entered hyperspace, communication with Mission Control would no longer be possible. They would be on their own for over five months, until they returned to the solar system.

“Roger that, _Hyperion_. Initiating final check sequence,” a tinny voice responded.

Green lights on the main panel lit one by one in a predetermined sequence, requiring Burke to push a button or flip a switch in acknowledgment before the next one would initiate. He glanced to his right, where Virdon watched the progression carefully and took care of any signals on his side of the board. With the ease born of hours of repetitious practice, Burke’s hands danced over the instruments. Occasionally he made minute adjustments to dials or sliders in response to instructions from mission command. They ran through the litany of check and double-check, redundancies and safety procedures followed to the letter.

When everything had been approved, the two astronauts exchanged a long look, their eyes bright with excitement. For Burke, the next few minutes would signal the start of the wildest adventure of his life. Traveling faster than the speed of light—it was something he’d read about in novels and watched in movies, where the residents of the future blithely flitted everywhere at hyperphotonic speeds. Even the language they used had been established by those speculative writers of the past. But now he was going to be the first man to pilot a ship traveling at unimaginable speeds. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face even if he’d tried.

Virdon sported a matching lopsided grin, although his was slightly more reserved. Not just because as mission commander he felt he had to be more austere, but because the next five months in space would mean separation from his family. He’d been here before, at the start of every mission, as a moment of worry stole into his thoughts, worry about how Sally and Chris were doing, worry about what they would do if he didn’t return. He made contingencies before every mission, just in case. An astronaut’s life was a dangerous one, he never forgot that.

But the maudlin thoughts fled quickly before the exhilaration of finally embarking on their true mission. He looked over his shoulder at Jones, sitting in position slightly behind the other two. “Well, gentlemen, let’s light this bird and see what she can do.”

Burke nodded. “Titan Base, all check sequences are green. We are go for FTL engine ignition. Over.”

“Roger, _Hyperion_. Before you go dark, we have a message from Major Jones’ wife. She says he’s got another mission at home counting down. Blastoff is in exactly seven months.”

Virdon turned in time to see his junior officer’s face light up. Jonesy’s adam’s apple bobbed a few times before he reached up and flipped on the mic in his headset. “Roger, Titan, this is Jones. Message received. Please pass along to Mrs. Jones that I’ll be there come hell or high water.“

“Our pleasure, Major. And congratulations.”

Buoyed up by that bit of good news, Virdon took a deep breath and returned his concentration to the historic moment at hand.

“Ready for countdown, Titan Base. Over.”

“Roger, _Hyperion._ Initiating fifteen-second countdown. See you on the flip side.”

As the tinny voice began the short countdown, Burke’s hands hovered over the controls that would engage the Hasslein drive.

“Three. Two. One. Engage.”

Burke flipped the switch, and a final message came over the vox. “Good luck and godspeed, _Hyperion_.” Then there was nothing but static.

 ******

Farrow leaned against the crossed supports of the chair he’d fashioned from a set of old, rusted metal shelves. His stomach rumbled, reminding him of the basket of fruit he’d left by the tree in the forest that morning. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten to retrieve it. He frowned as he tried to decide if it was worth the risk of discovery to get it now. The strangers would probably be hungry, too, when they finally woke, and he had only a few root vegetables that he kept in the cave as emergency supplies. Not enough to feed three hungry men.

The blond man began to thrash, slowly turning his head back and forth on the makeshift pillow. Farrow looked up in concern. The stranger mumbled, and while the words were unintelligible, the tone was fearful and strident.

Worried that the stranger may be waking, Farrow pushed himself out of his seat and knelt down next to the restless man. He pressed his ear closer to try to make out the words.

“Emergency,” the blond man muttered. “Emergency homing... Quick... Watch out....” Suddenly, he shouted, “Watch out!”

Startled, Farrow sat back on his heels. What was the stranger warning about? He brushed a hand over the man’s forehead, pushing his hair away from the cut that still oozed sluggishly. That seemed to calm him, but Farrow stayed by his side until he quieted completely.

Then with a nod, he decided to go get some food before the two woke.

Almost as soon as he stepped out the door of the secret cave, he heard the pounding hoofbeats of an ape patrol on horseback. He ducked back behind the curtain of foliage until the sound faded into the distance.

Rather than try to retrieve his basket from the morning, Farrow crept nervously to a gamore tree closer to the cave. When he’d past it that morning, he had noted that its branches were heavy with ripened fruit. He’d gather a few gamore fruit and be back to the cave as quick as he could.

He ducked behind a rock with his arms full when another mounted patrol thundered along the path. The apes _must_ be looking for the two strangers, as Farrow feared. And apes looking for humans could only have one outcome: quick and brutal deaths for the humans.

He had to be extra cautious on his way back to the cave to avoid exposing the two strangers to the apes.

 ******

Virdon opened his eyes with a groan. The left one was crusted over with something sticky. When he reached up to rub at it, his fingers came away red. He lay on his back, blinking to try to clear his vision, as he stared at the bloody smear. Then his surroundings registered.

With a start, he pushed himself up on his elbows, only to have the room spin and blackness encroach on the edges of his consciousness.

“Oof,” he grunted as he sank back down. _Where the hell am I?_ he thought, followed by _Burke? Jones?_

He slowly turned his head to one side and then the other before he spotted the prone figure dressed all in white.

His mind raced as a myriad of remembered images and sounds bombarded him. The klaxons on the ship going off moments before a squeal of stressed metal. The ship spinning out of control, throwing him against the restraints of his chair. Luckily, they had all been strapped into their seats when... whatever... had happened. There had been no time to react, no time to initiate any of the superfluous emergency procedures they had practiced repeatedly. He remembered yelling to Jones to activate the emergency homing beacon, and then everything went blank.

They obviously weren’t on the ship anymore.

But where were they?

The walls were made of crumbling concrete blocks and covered everywhere with thick strings of cobwebs. Wherever he was, it was old and neglected.

He rolled onto his side and, more gingerly this time, pushed himself up to a sitting position. His head ached like it was being split in two with a giant chisel.

“Hello?” he called, receiving no answer but a thin echo. _Someone_ had put him into this place on a makeshift bed of sorts. But where was the ship? And where were their rescuers?

He looked again at the dark-haired form a few feet away. Burke. A more careful scan of the room failed to reveal where Jones was. He could only hope that the other man was all right. Maybe he’d been more seriously injured and taken to a medical facility where he was being tended to right now by their rescuers. That’s why no one was there for he and Burke.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, trying to force his sluggish brain to _think_.

First things first. Burke was here, now. Priority one. He crawled over to his junior officer.

Burke looked like he’d fared better; at least he didn’t have any visible injuries. But given the way his own body was throbbing in counterpoint to the pounding in his head, he knew that appearances could be deceiving. He felt along Burke’s limbs for bulges or distortions that would indicate a broken bone. Nothing. A quick probe of Burke’s torso showed no signs of broken ribs or internal bleeding. It was only when he reached into the dark hair to check for head injuries that he felt the lump behind his ear and the warm stickiness of blood. A small trail of red trailed out of Burke’s right ear.

Virdon swore under his breath and leaned back on his heels. Until he figured out where his third crewmember was, he concentrated on Burke’s injuries. Burke almost certainly had a concussion—for that matter he probably did, too, given the way the room kept tilting around him. He crawled back over to the mat he’d been resting on. Next to it was a clay vessel filled with water, a damp cloth draped over the lip.

Grabbing the pitcher and cloth, he scooted back to Burke’s side. He pressed the cloth against his own forehead, the coolness soothing the pounding ache. The cloth came away with only a small red smudge, so he rinsed it out and started wiping down Burke’s face.

After a couple of minutes, Burke’s eyelids fluttered open, and he blinked owlishly a few times. His brown eyes finally focused on Virdon’s face.  Virdon smiled faintly, hoping to be reassuring. “No broken bones,” he told him. “I checked.”

Realization that he wasn’t where he thought he should be flooded into Burke’s face. He tried to sit up, only to grab his head and sink back down with a throaty moan.

“Easy.” Virdon grabbed his shoulder to help ease him down. “You gotta take that very slowly.” He ran the cloth over Burke’s forehead again.

Burke threw a now-you-tell-me look at Virdon. “Oh, do I?” Wincing, he gently touched the knot behind his ear. He scanned his surroundings with wide eyes. “What is this place? How’d we get here?”

Virdon wrung out the cloth. “I don’t know yet. I just got on my feet, too.”

“Where’s Jonesy?” Burke asked in alarm.

“Don’t know that either.” The sooner he could get Burke on his feet, the sooner they could search for answers to their questions. He slipped an arm behind Burke’s shoulders. “Here, try it again.”

With Virdon’s help, Burke managed to sit up, but he held onto his head with both hands as the room spun wildly. He groaned as every movement woke new aches in every joint and muscle. “Like a hangover without the pleasure of the booze.” He peered at Virdon, who poured water into a battered metal cup. “You know, I can’t even remember what happened.”

“We were approaching Alpha Centauri when we ran into some radioactive turbulence. We lost control.” He handed the cup to Burke. “I told Jonesy to activate the automatic homing device”

The cup paused halfway to Burke’s mouth. “Did he do it?”

Virdon shrugged. “Well, we landed _somewhere_. Could be Earth.”

“Or any one of a thousand other lousy planets in the gal—“

Virdon held up a hand to silence him. “Hold it.” He cocked his head as if listening for something. “Something’s coming. Stay put.”

He scrambled to his feet and turned toward the door. Spotting a hefty rock, he grabbed it, testing its weight in his hand. He flattened himself just inside the door and raised the rock over his head, ready to strike. Burke watched tensely from his position on the floor. An old man with long white hair pushed through the doorway, carrying an armful of fruit. With a quiet gasp, the old man backpedaled until he hit the concrete wall. He held out a large oblong fruit toward Virdon.

“I brought you something to eat.”

Startled, Virdon and Burke exchanged a wide-eyed look. English. The old man was speaking English. Virdon felt his heart begin to race. That meant they _had_ to be back on Earth!

Farrow mistook their shock for confusion. “Food?” He held one of the pieces of fruit out to show Burke, trying to be reassuring, then pushed it toward Virdon “Food?”

Virdon lowered the rock, let it slip from his fingers. “Who are you?”

The old man pointed to himself with a full hand. “Farrow.” Then he pushed the past Virdon and picked up a wooden plate. “This is for eating.”

Virdon followed Farrow as he knelt next to Burke and started arranging the food on the plate. “How did we get here? Where are we? We’re on Earth, aren’t we?”

Burke held out a hand to stem the flow of questions. “Take it slow, Alan. Give him a chance,” Burke said.

“This _is_ Earth, isn’t it?” Virdon pressed.

Farrow’s brow creased as he tried to puzzle out what Virdon meant. “Earth? What is Earth?”

Virdon frowned and decided on a new tact. “What is the name of this planet?”

“This is my secret cave. It doesn’t have a name.”

The guy must be not firing on all cylinders, Virdon decided. Before he could try to ask about their location again, Burke interrupted.

“There was another man with us. What happened to him?”

Farrow’s face fell. “Oh. He was dead.”

Virdon blanched. “Are you sure?” The _Hyperion_ was _his_ command. When they got back home, he’d be the one to go talk to Steve Jones’ wife, to tell her how her husband died.

Farrow nodded. “I know when a man is dead.”

Virdon glanced down at Burke, whose expression was pinched and drawn as he swore under his breath. Burke and Jones had been friends, a pair of jokers who liked to prank everyone around them. He shook his head sadly. “Poor Jonesy. He had a wife and kid.” Jones’ daughter had been just over a year old when they’d left on the mission, and he had another on the way.

Burke’s head snapped up, his face clouding over with anger. “Yeah, so do you. And you’re probably just about as far from them as he is.” He grabbed a piece of fruit from the pile Farrow had made. It was the size and color of a grapefruit, but the skin had a waxy texture and red nodules scattered on its surface.

“And maybe not,” Virdon began, pushing himself back to his feet.

“Come on, Alan! Take a look at this fruit. You ever see anything like this? And this place. You know what it looks like?” He waved his hand to take in the decaying concrete walls and steel door. “A bomb shelter. Maybe a couple hundred years old. Well, they didn’t have bomb shelters on Earth a couple of hundred years ago.”

Farrow watched the exchange between the two men, eyes darting between them, obviously not comprehending what they were saying.

“I know, Pete.” Virdon trailed off, looking around their shelter again. Burke was right. But if they weren’t on Earth, their chances of getting home dropped drastically. Their ship was designed for a survey mission. Once it entered atmosphere and landed, which was only supposed to happen at the end of the mission, it was never intended to lift off again. They’d have to wait for a rescue mission. Assuming that they were even anywhere near their original destination. The computer on the ship would be able to tell them that.

Virdon paced back over and knelt again. “Is our ship far from here?”

“No.” Farrow looked up from cutting and cleaning the fruit.

“Can you take us there?” If they could examine the flight record, they should be able to figure out where they were. And hopefully send out a distress signal that would be picked up by a rescue mission.

Farrow shook his head. “It wouldn’t be safe, dressed like that.” He pointed at the white Nomex flight suits they wore, a stark contrast to his rough, homespun clothes. Then he broke into a grin. “But we’ll fool them. I’ll go into Chalo and get different clothes for you.”

“What’s Chalo?” Burke asked.

“Chalo.” He looked at Burke with narrowed eyes, as if trying to decide if the astronaut was mocking him or just stupid. “The village where humans are supposed to live.” Virdon and Burke exchanged a puzzled glance. “I don’t like the Prefect, so I stay most of the time here.” He rose with a grunt and headed for the door. “I found this place about two years ago. But I never told anybody about it, so you’ll be safe here.”

He reached for the handle and pushed the metal door open with a screech of rusted hinges.

“Safe?” Burke barked, starting to get angry with the old man’s gibberish. “From what?”

“From the apes, of course.” His tone made it clear that he thought the other two were just being silly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He was out the door while both astronauts stared after him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

“Apes?” Virdon turned to Burke for confirmation that’d he’d heard correctly.

“That’s what the man said.”

 _Great_ , Virdon thought. _That guy’s elevator was definitely not going to the top floor._

 ******

_T-minus two hours—July 22, 1980_

“Good morning. This is Walter Cronkite, bringing you live coverage of the launch of the _Hyperion_ spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center. It’s T-minus one hour, fifty-two minutes, 48 seconds and counting. In just under two hours, if all goes well, the first manned interstellar mission will take astronauts Virdon, Jones, and Burke further—and faster—than any astronauts have gone before. Their destination: Alpha Centauri, to survey the mysterious Earth-like planet Centauri Prime.

“The ship carrying them there will do so at speeds faster than light, a barrier thought to be impenetrable until the groundbreaking discoveries of astrophysicist Dr. Otto Hasslein. Dr. Hasslein’s engine will make it possible for the _Hyperion_ to travel 4.3 light years—a distance so vast that it takes light over four years to traverse it—in just under a month.

“The astronauts are aboard now, strapped into their command module out on pad 39A. They’re going through the final check of all the systems of the spacecraft to be sure they are ready to go. At precisely eleven a.m., that huge thirty-six story high launch vehicle is scheduled to thunder to life, pushing the _Hyperion_ spacecraft out of Earth’s gravity and hurtling toward the edges of our solar system. In five days, the ship will pass Saturn and the base on Saturn’s moon Titan, the last outpost of human contact they will have. On July 27 th, a date that will live in history, they will activate the Hasslein faster-than-light engine. Twenty-nine-year-old Peter Burke will become the first human being to pilot a ship beyond the light barrier, into the void beyond our solar system.

“Mission commander Alan Virdon is no stranger to the base on Titan. Six years ago, he was a member of the crew that established that base. The launch of _Hyperion_ is the culmination of a dream begun by President Kennedy, when he pledged to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely within a decade. Now, a decade after _that_ , the visionaries of our time have taken that pledge a step further, as they strive to explore the first possible habitable planet found outside our solar system.

“Mission specialist Stephen Jones, the third crewmember, will oversee the survey of Centauri Prime by remote drones carrying probes to take readings of the soil, air, water, and discover if the possibility of extraterrestrial life exists. Are we alone in the universe? That question may be answered for us before the year is out.”

“We’ll take you now to correspondent Dan Rather, who is out at the VIP section of the observation deck. He’s with the wives of two of the astronauts. Dan?”

“That’s right, Walter, with me are Sally Virdon and Michelle Jones, anxiously awaiting, along with the rest of the world, the launch of their husbands’ spaceship. Mrs. Virdon, how do you feel knowing your husband is about to make history?”

“I’m really proud, Dan. Alan has always been an explorer at heart, and he’s been dreaming of this day since he was very young. He’s honored to have been chosen to lead this important mission. I know whatever they find out there, they’ll face it with courage and usher in a new age of wonder for us all.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Virdon. Mrs. Jones, what are your thoughts this morning?”

“Steve is pleased as anything to be included on this mission, Dan. Searching for life elsewhere in the universe has always been his passion. And to be the first to visit another planet, to discover the mysteries it holds, is a dream come true for him.”

“As it is for us all. Mrs. Virdon, you are a veteran, so to speak, with this being Colonel Virdon’s third time into space. But this is the longest by far, and much of it without any communication possible. How does this mission compare in terms of the others for you?”

“Well, Dan, he was gone for three months on the Titan mission, but they already had communication relays in place before they even left. So we could still talk periodically. From what I understand, because of the nature of the faster than light travel, they won’t be able to send any signals until they return. “

“That’s right.”

“I am totally confident of Alan’s leadership and the capabilities of the other two men, that they will complete their mission and bring back a wealth of scientific information. Five months is a long time to be separated, but I know what he’s doing is incredibly important. I just feel really proud... and... and... pleased for him to have this honor.”

“What I think Sally is trying to say, Dan, is that we have felt so much support from everyone that the time will fly by before we know it. There’s been such an outpouring of love and encouragement from the country, from the entire world really, that we feel blessed to be even a small part of this whole endeavor.”

“That’s wonderful, Mrs. Jones. Thank you both, ladies. Back to you, Walter.”

 ******

Farrow had no trouble sneaking in and out of the village; he’d been doing it for years. The new Prefect, a chimpanzee named Veska, was ambitious. Which meant that he changed things, tried to make them better. Except Veska’s idea of “better” wasn’t always an improvement in the lot of the humans who lived in the village. Mostly he seemed interested in garnering the attention of the apes in Central City, by finding ways to exceed their quota of grain that went to the City. And invariably, those ways fell on the backs of the human workers. Chalo had always managed to mostly meet their quotas; sometimes they fell short if the rains were scarce, but that could hardly be blamed on the human workers. Farrow thought that the fewer apes who had an interest in Chalo, the better. Why couldn’t Veska leave well enough alone?

He skirted around the crowd gathered in front of the Prefect’s office, shifting the bundle of clothing he carried. When on of the gorilla soldiers gave him a narrow look, he stopped for a moment as if listening, turning so the clothing was shielded by his body.

“These two humans are strangers,” Veska was saying to the crowd, “and they are insane!”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Farrow nodded as if agreeing with those around him, but he didn’t think the strangers were insane. After all, he’d seen with his own eyes the contraption that had fallen out of the sky with them inside it. Sure, they asked a lot of weird questions, but he imagined they must come from somewhere very far away.

“Don’t listen to them. Report their whereabouts to us at once if you should see them. They are very dangerous!”

Now he knew that Veska was just making that up. He’d seen no hint of danger in the two white-suited humans. Apes were dangerous. Sometimes other humans were if you had something they wanted and they were willing to take by force. But these two… he’d seen confusion, fear, sorrow, but not the killer instinct he saw in the eyes of every gorilla.

As soon as the soldiers turned their attention away from him, he slipped away from the crowd and into the woods.

 ******

Virdon sat on a pile of bricks and leaned back against the concrete wall. He fiddled with what looked like a stone-carved spearhead, lashed onto a shaft that was broken off, leaving just enough to make a good hand grip. Turning the rough weapon over in his hands, he wondered about who might have made it. He tested the edge with his finger and decided he could use it as a makeshift knife if necessary.

“So what do you think he meant by ‘apes’?” Burke asked. He reclined on the matt on the floor, his head propped up on a rough pillow. “Are we talking Tarzan here? Or more like Jungle Book?”

“Or, we need to think about the very real possibility that Farrow is insane,” Virdon countered. “I mean, is it just me that thinks he seems… off?”

“Maybe _he’s_ Tarzan. Y’know, raised by the apes. Those clothes he was wearing looked pretty ratty. He did say he didn’t like being in the village with the other humans.”

“I don’t know Pete, but we need to find the ship and figure out where the hell we are. That’ll answer a lot of our questions.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence, each man’s thoughts wandering to whether they would ever see their home again. Virdon was the more optimistic of the two. To him, getting home was just another mission; any obstacles were just problems to be solved in due time. Burke’s thoughts were more maudlin, thinking of worse case scenarios while secretly holding a tiny nugget of hope deep in his heart.

Burke finally broke the stillness. “I was just thinkin’, when I was a kid in Jersey City, I couldn’t even see the stars. Used to dream about ‘em, though. Used to dream about being up there with them,” he mused. Then his tone turned bitter. “Heh, I sure got my wish, didn’t I? Pete Burke, marooned in an ancient bomb shelter.” He smirked and chuckled wryly. “Well, there’ll be a few ladies that’ll miss me anyway…”

“We’ll get home, Pete.” Virdon leaned back and closed his eyes. “Somehow.”

Burke frowned. “Come off it, Alan. This is home from now on, and you know it.” He sat up and pushed himself smoothly to his feet. “And I think I wanna see what it looks like.” He started walking toward the door.

Virdon scrambled to his feet and grabbed Burke’s arm. “Hey, you heard what the old man said...”

Burke rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure. Apes,” he scoffed. He grabbed the handle to the door and pushed it open. Virdon had no choice but to follow him.

As they emerged from the bomb shelter, both men held up a hand to shield their eyes from the bright sun that dappled the verdant foliage. The air smelled fresh and pure, but rich with the scents of a vibrant, growing forest. A path wound away from the entrance through the bushes, and with a shrug of his shoulders, Burke strode off, happy to stretch his legs. The path sloped down through a gully, delimited on both sides by exposed rock.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Burke observed, looking around at the familiar trees and bushes lining the path. Even the boulders looked like rock that could be found in any park they might have visited back home.

“Just like Earth,” Virdon agreed.

They reached the bottom of the short incline, where the terrain opened up onto a gravel-paved trail. Both men were starting to perspire in the warm air. Virdon pulled the neck of his jacket open, while Burke tugged at his sleeves and folded them up from his wrists.

After a few more feet, Burke heard birds chirping loudly over the crunching of gravel under their boots. “Listen.” He put a restraining hand on Virdon’s arm. Cocking his head to one side to locate the direction, he pointed toward a nearby tree. On a branch perched a red-breasted bird that looked very similar to a robin. He smiled. A bright, sunny day in a pristine-looking forest, with birds singing. He could almost believe he was on a leave, taking a hike in a national park, maybe King’s Canyon or Yosemite.

Virdon scanned the area more warily, the old man’s last words still echoing in head. What had Farrow been so afraid of? He scrubbed a hand across his mouth nervously.

“Yeah, well, we could’ve landed in a worse place, I’ll tell you that,” Burke said just as a gunshot rang out.

The boulder behind Burke’s head exploded in a puff of dust and rock fragments. Both men instinctively ducked, their heads whipping around searching for the source. They spotted the two gorillas on horseback as one raised his rifle and fired again. A staccato of gunfire chased them as they fled back into the gully and up the small rise.

The gorillas spurred their horses into motion, their shouts to their horses loud and harsh. They followed the gravel road as it skirted around the gully the two astronauts had disappeared into, but the shortcut had given the two humans a lead.

Virdon and Burke sprinted along the road, the sound of the horses growing louder. In the lead, Burke dodged into the trees, leaping over a fallen log and hurtling deep into the thick vegetation. As he listened to Virdon crashing after him, he scanned the undergrowth for hiding places. He skidded to a stop and quickly grabbed Virdon’s arm as the other man almost ran past him. He threw himself flat on the ground under a thick shrub, pulling his friend with him.

They ducked down further, practically burying their faces in the mossy soil, trying to quiet the strident sounds as they both fought to catch their breath. Sweat trickled down Burke’s back, but he laid perfectly still in hopes of blending into his surroundings.

The two gorillas pulled their horses up short after they rounded a corner to a section of road that was open and flat, but the two humans were nowhere to be found. They didn’t notice the two pairs of wide, shocked eyes that stared at them from beneath a concealing branch.

“They won’t get far,” one gorilla said to his companion. He reluctantly pulled the reins to turn the horse back toward the village.

Once the apes had departed, Burke gasped, “Those were apes! Weren’t they?” His voice squeaked on the last word, as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. His lips pressed into a grim line.

Virdon was equally gobsmacked. “Gorillas,” came his breathless reply.

“What kind of planet is this?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

_T-minus sixteen hours—July 20, 1980_

“C’mon, Jif!” Jones stuck his head into the lounge, where Burke slouched on one of the sofas, a battered paperback book in one hand. He banged the doorframe with his hand in excitement.

“Nah,” Burke drawled. “You go ahead. Say ‘bye’ to Michelle for me.”

Jones frowned, taking in his friend’s indolent posture and grim expression. He considered for a moment, then trotted into the room. “Un uh, buddy boy. You are _not_ going to sit here and sulk. Alan’s waiting in the observation room already. Three musketeers, remember?”

Virdon and Jones had reasons to be excited. This evening was a last chance to see their families in person, even if they were separated by an inch of plexiglass They’d been in quarantine for nine days to ensure that they didn’t carry any wayward germs with them into space. They’d already poked and prodded, swabbed and stuck, as part of their L-10 physical to make sure they weren’t already infected when they’d entered quarantine in Houston. Then they’d been subjected to _another_ physical yesterday when they’d arrived at Canaveral. They’d been vaccinated for every imaginable disease that the government could think of, including some that weren’t available to the general public. But all it took was one cold virus, and the entire mission could be endangered.

Unlike his two crewmates, Burke didn’t have a wife and kid. Or even a wife for that matter. Not so much as a fiancé. He didn’t expect to have any visitors waiting for him, so he didn’t see a reason to go to this shindig.

But his friend wasn’t going to let him be.

When Burke peered over the top of his book at Jones, who stood arms akimbo, Jones raised an eyebrow impatiently. “Well?”

Dropping his book into his lap with a huff, Burke favored Jones with a scowl. “No one is going to be there to say goodbye to me, Jonesy,” he reasoned without any rancor. He was just stating a fact, one that he was perfectly fine with.

“Michelle and Sally will want to say goodbye. The only reason you don’t have a whole passel of women there is because they only let one come. Can you imagine the bloodbath over who gets that honor? It’d make Black Friday at Macy’s look like a love-in.” Jones held out his hand. “C’mon. Michelle’ll be pissed if I’m late.”

“Well, can’t have that now.” Burke shrugged and grabbed the outstretched hand, allowing Jones to pull him off of the couch. When he was upright, Jones slapped him on the back.

Jones led the way, winding through a maze of hallways, until they approached a heavy metal door with “Observation Area” stenciled on it in oversized red letters. Virdon waited beside the door, leaning against the wall.

He smiled when he saw both his junior officers. “Good,” was all he said.

The family visit was closed to the press, so they didn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances for snapping cameras during their final moments with their loved ones. But there was no privacy, since both sides of the plexiglass and steel barrier would be on speaker. The three men took seats pressed as close to the window as possible, so they could more easily see the crowd outside.

Burke spotted Sally Virdon first, her blond hair shining like a beacon under the incandescent lights. Next to her stood Chris Virdon, the top of his head already reaching his mother’s shoulder, even though he was only ten years old. Michelle Jones stood on the other side of Sally, one hand entwined in hers, the other resting on the handle of a stroller where a chubby-legged toddler slept.

Virdon reached over and flicked the control to the speakers. “Good evening, everyone. Thanks for coming.” His normally deep voice was heavy with emotion.

Sally squeeze Michelle’s hand as she whispered something to the other woman. At an encouraging hand on her back, Michelle stepped forward, pushing the stroller closer. When she got as close to the wall as she could, she reached down and lifted the sleeping toddler onto her hip. The child yawned hugely before looking around with big eyes.

“Hey, Nattie, who’s that?” She pointed at the window, where her husband was mugging it up.

“Hey, baby, did you come to see Daddy?”

Although he exchanged a few pleasantries the other men's families, Burke otherwise tried to tune out the conversations, both to give his friends a small modicum of discretion, but also because listening made him feel a twinge of longing. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

Chris Virdon was telling Alan about his excitement at starting Pop Warner football when a small commotion in the back of the visitors’ room caught Burke’s attention. A dark-haired woman pushed her way into the room, holding out a credential card for the guard to inspect. She looked a little frazzled as she tucked a tendril of not quite shoulder length hair behind her ear. The guard nodded to her, and she moved further into the room, her high-heeled sandals clacking loudly on the cement floor.

Sally flashed an enigmatic grin at her husband and held up a finger to let him know she’d be right back. While Chris finished his story, Sally approached the woman and spoke to her briefly out of earshot. She pulled the woman into a quick hug, then tugged her forward to the window.

“Carolyn?” Burke exclaimed, sounding uncertain.

“Hey, baby brother,” she answered shyly.

Burke chuckled affectionately. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, Sally called me,” she glanced at the other woman with a smile, “and told me that family members had a special section to watch the launch from. I figured, since they went to all that trouble, it seemed rude not to make use of it.” She reached out a hand toward the glass separating them. “You didn’t think I was gonna let my only little brother have his moment in the sun without being here to represent Jersey City, did ya?” She delivered the last few words with an exaggerated Jersey accent.

“Yeah right. You live in Connecticut,” he scoffed. “What about Mom and Nicole?”

Carolyn tilted her head to one side with a shrug. Her voice turned a little sad. “Mom doesn’t travel so well anymore. Nicole stayed home to watch with her on the TV. But they are both so proud.” She brightened, looking at the other two men crowded in next to him. “You gonna introduce me to your friends, Petey?”

He flushed a little at the use of his childhood nickname. Jones was going to have a field day with that later. “Steve Jones, Alan Virdon, this is my sister, Carolyn LeBlanc.” He snapped his fingers. “Is what’s-his-name here?”

“No, Mark stayed home with the kids.” She turned to Virdon with a raised brow. “Your wife is a force to be reckoned with, Colonel Virdon.”

“It’s Alan, Carolyn. And don’t I know it.” He smirked and tapped Burke lightly on the back of the head with his open palm. “So is your brother, of an entirely different sort.”

“Ha!” Carolyn snorted, then her expression softened with an adoring glow. “Yeah, he’s something all right.”

******

Galen, son of Yalu, sat in the office of Councillor Zaius, head of the ape High Council, and tried not to fidget. He studied the orangutan, who was considering him as a personal assistant. For a young chimpanzee just out of university, the opportunity was truly one of a kind.

Zaius’s position as an elder was unquestionable. The ginger fur surrounding the orangutan’s face and muzzle was edged in white. Although he moved easily as he paced from the desk to Galen’s chair, his shoulders were slightly stooped with age beneath the yellow and tan robe that denoted his position. His hands, which he waved animatedly when he talked, were gnarled but still strong enough to break open marena nuts unassisted. Galen swallowed nervously and gripped the arms of the chair tightly to keep his hands still.

“You are bright and amusing, Galen, but is that reason enough for me to accept you as my assistant?” Zaius questioned him. His mind raced, not sure how to respond to the backhanded compliment.

“Well, I do have one other qualification, Councillor Zaius.” Galen leaned in conspiratorially at Zaius’s questioning glance. “My father is a very old friend of yours. And you owe him a favor.”

Zaius stared for a moment, as if trying to decide if he should be outraged or entertained. Entertained won. He laughed appreciatively, much to Galen’s relief.

“Are you always so direct?”

Galen tilted his head to one side, an earnest expression creasing his brow. “Only with people whom I respect, sir.”

“Ah, ah.” At that moment, Zaius’s human servant Ullman quietly opened the door and poked his head into the room. “Yes?” Zaius beckoned him forward.

“Message, sir, from the prefect of Chalo.” He held out the folded parchment in his hand.

“Chalo?” asked Zaius, puzzled.

But the answer came from Galen. “A small human settlement about thirty miles south of here.” At Zaius’s surprised look, Galen added, “The prefect is a second cousin on my mother’s side.”

“I see.” Zaius took the proffered letter from Ullman, breaking the seal to unfold it. “And do you have friends everywhere?” Dismissed, the human retreated and closed the door quietly.

“I try, sir.”

“You’re not only amusing—” Zaius stopped abruptly as he read the first lines of the letter. His face blanched, the skin under his eyes turning a shade whiter than the tan of his muzzle. “It’s not possible,” the orangutan’s stunned voice shook.

Galen’s mouth gaped open in concern. “What’s the matter, sir?” he stuttered out.

In answer, Zaius handed the parchment over, then shuffled wearily over to a cabinet enclosed by panels of hardened resin. He stared at a box of alien devices sitting on one of the shelves as Galen read the message. “Did you ever have a recurring nightmare? No matter how swiftly you tried to escape destruction, it always reappears directly in front of you.”

“I...I...I don’t understand, sir.” Galen stammered in disbelief. “Humans are laborers, farmers, and servants. They’re not technicians. This...this is pure fantasy.”

“Destruction is not fantasy, Galen!” Zaius snatched the letter out of his hands. The chimp, startled by the outburst, shrank back into the chair. “You have a great deal to learn.” He scribbled a few lines at the bottom of the page, then folded it again with quick, heavy-handed movements. “Ullman!” he bellowed.

When the human servant fearfully appeared again, Zaius thrust the paper into his hands. “Deliver this to Chief Urko’s office. Immediately!” He waved a hand at him impatiently.

******

When Farrow returned to the secret cave with the plundered clothes, he found the astronauts wide-eyed and frantic, pacing the small space inside. They overwhelmed his with rapid-fire questions about the apes, but grew increasingly frustrated with Farrow’s lack of understanding.

“Those apes we saw looked like gorillas. Are all the apes gorillas?” Virdon asked as he pulled off the white boots that were part of his flight suit.

Farrow had dropped a bundle of clothes on the ground for Burke and Virdon to rummage through. They each found a pair of baggy pants, with rope belts to hold them up, and a single patch pocket sewn on the front near the waist. The fabric felt coarse and scratchy. Burke frowned at the lack of underwear. Going commando in the simple pants was _not_ going to be comfortable. He pulled a blue shirt and white vest out of the pile and tossed the larger shirt to Virdon, who had a stockier build. They sorted out the shoes, holding them up to their feet for sizing.

“Gorillas are mostly soldiers. There are chimpanzees and orangutans—they are usually a little nicer than gorillas.”

Burke gave Virdon a pleading look when once he had stripped off the Nomex flight suit and was down to his skivvies. Virdon shook his head sharply, then shucked his own briefs and added them to the pile of discarded clothing. With a flush climbing in his cheeks, Burke followed his commander’s lead, then quickly donned his new pants. He winced as the fabric rubbed roughly on sensitive skin.

“Are the apes in control all over the planet?” Burke gathered the hem of the homespun shirt and pulled it over his head.

“I don’t understand.” Farrow sat in his shelf-chair, watching as the two astronauts shed their alien uniforms and donned the familiar clothing he’d brought back from the village.

“What’s he’s asking is, who runs the government?” Virdon tied the rope belt that held up the loose gray trousers.

“Well, the prefect.”

Virdon shook his head. “No, I don’t mean just the village, I mean the _main_ government.”

“You mean the High Council. They’re very important.” Farrow’s brow furrowed as he remembered something important. “They sent a messenger to the High Council about you two. I heard about it.”

“Are there any humans on the High Council?” Burke asked as he pulled the vest on over his shirt.

Farrow chuckled dryly. Surely the stranger was kidding. “Humans on the High Council?” He shook his head. “Humans are nothing. They’ve always been nothing. Except in storybooks.”

The two astronauts exchanged a look of dismay. “Always?” Burke’s voice cracked with suppressed emotion.

“How could it be otherwise? The apes are so much smarter than we are.” Virdon and Burke shuffled uncomfortably. “Well, except for you two, I guess. You’re different. That’s why they’re looking for you.”

“What’ll they do if they find us?” Virdon inquired, not really sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Kill you.” Both men paused a beat, their faces dropping. “They’re always killing humans.”

“Oh, this is just a great little world we landed on,” Burke spat. He reached down to begin gathering up his uniform, rolling it into a bundle around the boots.

“Well, they’d kill me, if they knew about the storybook.”

Virdon cocked his head to one side. “What storybook?”

“I found it here.” Farrow stood and walked over to one of the holes in the concrete.  “I found lots of other books, too. But I couldn’t read what they had to say, so I used them for fire.” He reached deep into the recess, dislodging some rocks that hid a battered, antique book. Pulling it out, he flipped gently through the yellowed pages. “But I kept this ‘cause it had pictures in it, and I like to look at the pictures. Even though they’re only stories.”

Virdon reached out and took the book from the old man’s hands. “Let me see.”

Farrow seemed reluctant to part with it. “Careful, it’s very old.”

“Yes, I know. I will,” Virdon reassured him, as he cradled the spine in one hand and opened the cover with the other. He turned a page, and what he saw there made his heart freeze in his chest. “Oh my God, Pete,” he breathed in an anguished whisper. “Oh my God.”

Burke leaned over Virdon’s shoulder. “The year 2503?”

“This picture was taken five hundred years after we left!”

“We can’t go home, Alan! We’re on Earth. We’re there already!”

******

_T-minus five days—July 17, 1980_

“All right, let’s lock one of the gimbals while they are in hyperspace, see what Burke does.” Jake Rousch, Test Director for the _Hyperion_ mission scheduled to launch in five days, oversaw one of the final simulator trainings scheduled for the astronauts. Although he had full confidence in Burke’s capability to pilot the ship with the help of the onboard computer, he wanted to test the Major’s abilities should any emergencies arise while they are out of contact with Mission Control.

One of the technicians flipped a few switches on the master panel, which the controls inside the simulator were slaved to, to emulate a malfunction in the navigation system.

Alarms began to go off inside the simulator, and Rousch heard Burke swear over the open microphone before he regained his composure. On the camera that monitored activity inside the cockpit, he watched Burke quickly slide his chair closer to the control panel, his hands flying over the controls as he assessed the situation and responded.

“Status?” came Virdon’s command, his voice urgent but calmly competent.

“Nav computer dropped a gimbal.” The gyroscope that marked their course began to drift. “Jonesy, bring the backup nav online. Switching to manual control until we can get the comp back.” Burke spoke rapidly, already pushing buttons to release control from the computer. He wrapped both hands around the joystick that regulated the smaller chemical engines used for course corrections.

“You sure?” Virdon asked quietly, almost indiscernible to the microphone. His hand hovered over the button that would kick them out of hyperspace by shutting down the FTL drive. But killing the Hasslein engine that quickly had its own dangers.

“Yeah, I got it.”

Rousch crossed his arms and frowned. Going off computer control was not the recommended course of action, but he let the scenario play out. He could always correct Burke in the debrief after the simulation declared them hopelessly lost.

The gyroscope slowly crawled back to center, as Burke steadied the ship with miniscule adjustments. Too rapid adjustments at faster than light speeds could send the ship into a spin with centrifugal forces that would rip it apart. Seconds ticked by as the technical crew monitored Jones’s commands to activate the backup navigational computer and get a proper reading of their position in space. And then, Burke overcompensated, and the gyroscope swung in the exact opposite direction as earlier.

“Pete—” Virdon drawled in warning.

“Trust me, Al. I got it.” Burke’s reply was smug to Rousch’s ears. The pilot focused intently on the positional gyroscope, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he maintained his vise-like grip on the joystick. Another few seconds passed before the instrument centered in its proper orientation and held steady. Rousch shook his head wryly. Burke’s brash confidence was well known among the crew—and not entirely unwarranted. The man did have nerves of solid steel. But this time, his cockiness could cost him.

Although the Hasslein drive was fusion based, its power supply was not limitless. And the fuel supply for the attitude engines was also limited. If they went too far off course while under manual control—and at the speeds they were going to be traveling, even a few minutes could equate to vast distances—they wouldn’t have enough fuel to complete the round trip to their destination.

A quiescent section of the control panel suddenly lit up as the backup navigational computer exerted its influence on the ship.

“Nav back online,” Jones reported at the same time. “All gimbals free and re-aligning. Manual control disengaged.”

Burke released the joystick and blew out a gusty sigh. He flapped both hands to loosen up his cramped fingers.

“Calculate how far off course they are.” Rousch leaned over the shoulder of the technician as she tapped her keyboard to request the information from the massive computer that governed all aspects of the simulation. Inside the cockpit, Jones was checking their new location as well, using the positions of several mapped pulsars—whose emissions were one of the few forms of radiation that penetrated hyperspace—to triangulate their coordinates in space.

“Sir—” the female technician gasped. Rousch peered more intently at her computer screen.

Jones’s voice interrupted. “Control, we read a course variation of only point-oh-two percent. Total extra fuel expenditure to correct is negligible, well within safety range.” He flashed a grin at Burke. “We’re essentially still on course, Control.”

Rousch straightened up, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “Roger. We confirm same. Good job, gentlemen.”

Inside the simulator, Virdon slapped a grinning Burke on the back in congratulations.

******

“Another ship, Zaius? It’s hard to believe.” Chief Urko, head of the gorilla police force, looked up from the parchment he held in his gloved hands. Galen leaned on the desk next to him, still trying to absorb all the things he’d learned today.

Zaius raised a brow at Urko. “Can the chief of security afford not to believe it?”

“How reliable is this prefect? Do you know him?” Urko asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. Chimpanzees and orangutans were entirely too cerebral and apt to overthink every situation. He preferred action to deliberation.

“Galen does.” Zaius indicated the young chimp with a tilt of his head.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Galen interjected. “How could humans build and run such a machine? We can’t even do it!”

“Who is this fool, Zaius?” Urko asked, his lip twitching with disdain.

“Galen’s going to be my assistant... maybe.” He stood and braced himself heavily on the desk. “There were _three_ humans, Urko. One is dead, the other two are still at large. They must be found and quickly.”

“Yes, and killed!” Urko agreed.

“No!” Zaius cut Urko off with a chop of his hand. “Brought back. Questioned by the High Council.”

“This is an infection, Zaius!” insisted Urko. “One doesn’t question it, one wipes it out! Just as we did before.”

“Not until we question its source.” Urko turned away in disgust. Zaius continued for Galen’s benefit. “More than ten years ago, another such ship landed. _Humans_.” He spat the word out like it had a bad taste. “They said they were from this world but from another time period long ago.”

Galen’s mouth gaped open. “You know, I’ve heard stories like that, but I always thought they were stories. I never believed that it really happened.”

Urko picked up the letter and scanned it again while Zaius and Galen talked.

“That’s what we wanted everyone to think. There were such humans, Galen. They called themselves—” His gaze took on a distant look. “What was the word, Urko?”

Urko threw the paper back onto the desk. “Ast-ro-nauts.”

“Astronauts,” repeated Zaius, the word feeling strange as it tangled his tongue.

“Yes, hmmm.”

“Astronauts,” Galen tested the word. “What were they like?” Now his curiosity was piqued.

“They had greater knowledge and capabilities than our humans.” His voice took on a sinister tone. “And they had feelings on independence and freedom.”

“Humans?” Galen had never imagined in his wildest fantasies that humans would be smart. Or independent. “That’s fascinating.”

“Not fascinating, Galen. Unlawful!” Galen winced at Zaius’s reprimand. “They would have encouraged our humans to be equally _unlawful_.”

Urko put a hand reassuringly on the grip of the pistol at his belt. “But the danger was eliminated. They were killed.”

“Before they could be questioned!”

“My job is protection, not the gathering of useless information!” Urko railed back at the elder orangutan, pounding his fist on the desk.

“No information is useless!” Zaius insisted stridently. He strode around the desk. “We have to learn how they think, Urko. What makes them different from the humans we know. Once we learn how to deal with them—and any other that may come along—then they can be killed.”

Urko snatched his helmet off the desk and stomped angrily from the room, slamming the door on his way out.

At the departure of the imposing gorilla, Galen let out a breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding. But his relief was short-lived.

“You will go along and see that nothing happens to these... astronauts.” Galen turned back to Zaius with a panicked look. “I don’t trust Urko.”

“Oh, he won’t listen to me, sir.”

“You carry my authority when you go as my representative.”

 _I guess that means I have the job after all_ , Galen thought. But he replied meekly, “Yes, sir.”

“I note a certain lack of enthusiasm,” Zaiuis’s voice was wry as he circled back behind his desk. Galen held onto the edge to keep his knees from folding, whether from excitement or fear, he wasn’t sure. “You may have a chance to visit your second cousin on your mother’s side.”

Galen made a noise. “Well, to tell you the truth, I never really liked him very much.” His brow wrinkled. “Sir, these, uh, these astronauts, are they truly different from the humans we know?”

“Absolutely! And they are a threat. However, I want them alive.” He gave Galen a knowing nod. “For now.”

Galen’s nose wiggled with unabashed curiosity. “It’s a shame they have to be killed at all. They do sound so interesting.”


	4. Chapter 4

_T-minus eleven days—July 11, 1980_

Major Burke tugged at the tight neck of his dress shirt, trying to resist the urge to fiddle with the bow tie and cummerbund of his mess dress uniform. He knew he was fidgeting, but he hated wearing the tuxedo-like monkey suit. At least since they were indoors, he didn’t have to suffer through wearing the farts and darts lid that went with it. He snagged a flute of champagne as a tray went by carried by a formally dressed waiter. While he sipped, he scanned the room looking for his fellow astronauts. Neither Virdon nor Jones were in sight, but a platter of bacon wrapped scallops caught his eye. He plucked one up by its brightly colored toothpick and popped it in his mouth. One good thing about White House receptions, the food and the booze were always first rate.

He wandered through the ornately decorated room, stopping every few feet to press flesh with some dignitary or politician who wanted to introduce themselves. _Smile and nod, Pete, smile and nod_. These were the people who kept the money flowing into the space program, the money that funded the mission they would be undertaking in just over a week. Keeping them happy and impressed was job security.

When he finally made it into the next room—a ballroom with an elegant string quartet playing in one corner—he saw Jones on the parquet dancing cheek to cheek with his wife. He smiled wistfully. Given the way Michelle laughed and blushed at something Jones whispered in her ear, his buddy was going to get laid but good tonight. Hopefully that would make him bearable to be around for the next ten days while they were in quarantine before the mission.

He could have brought a date tonight; the invitation with its curling script printed in raised ink on thick, embossed stationary had said “Major Peter J. Burke and Guest”, after all. But he’d decided he’d rather go stag and keep his options open for his last night as a free man. Because if one of America’s elite astronauts couldn’t score at the White House, then he might as well hang up his flight suit and put on monastic robes.

Although most of the women in attendance were wives, there were a few single ladies. That was usually the first thing that pinged on his radar—check the left hand for a ring. And while it was true that many of the eligible women here were daughters of powerful and influential men, well, he was about to head into space for five months. Plenty of time for any furor to die down.

He caught Jonesy’s eye when the dance turned him in Burke’s direction, and they gave each other a grin and a nod. Jonesy had a toddler at home, but he’d confided in Burke a few days ago that they were trying for another before he left. Yeah, he knew what was going to be occupying his buddy for the rest of the night.

Burke saw another waiter, so he ditched his empty glass on a table before taking a fresh one from the tray as it passed. He was about to go scope out the dining room, see who they had wedged him between on the seating arrangement, when he saw Sally Virdon sitting by herself against the wall of the ballroom. Her long blonde hair was curled and pinned up in a stylish arrangement, her pale blue gown a perfect counterpoint to the navy blue dress uniform the astronauts wore. But Colonel Alan Virdon was nowhere in sight. Burke shook his head and changed course in her direction, picking up another glass of champagne along the way.

“I see the good Colonel is neglecting the most beautiful woman here tonight. Again.” He held the flute in front of her, drawing her back from whatever middle distance she’d been staring into, and flashed a charming smile.

“Thank you, Major.” She inclined her head then patted the seat next to her. “And where is your date?”

“Don’t have one,“ he replied with a smirk.

“You’re going to spend the night before quarantine _alone_?”

He wiggled a finger at her. “Now, I never said _that_. Just because I showed up alone doesn’t mean I plan on leaving alone.”

She shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. Hasn’t Alan or Steve rubbed off on you at all in the past three years?”

“No, ma’am. Not if I can help it.” He looked around. “Speaking of the old ball and chain, where is Alan?”

“Off somewhere talking shop with Senator Glenn. I’m not sure which of them was more excited about meeting the other.”

Burke chuckled. “Well, then I guess it’s my duty to cover for my CO.” He rose smoothly and extended his hand. “Shall we dance?”

“I haven’t finished my champagne yet,” she laughed, arching a slender eyebrow.

“There’ll be more later.” He took both glasses, his empty, and placed them on a nearby table, then offered his hand again.

She slipped her hand into his and let him lead her onto the dance floor. He took her in a gentle clasp, his hand resting lightly on her waist, with a respectful distance between them.

The smile Sally wore as they swayed to and fro held a touch of melancholy. Like her husband, Sally’s thoughts easily turned maudlin at the prospect of their upcoming long separation. Burke decided that just wouldn’t do at all.

He clucked his tongue and sighed dramatically. “There go my prospects for the rest of the evening,” he began mysteriously.

Sally knew a baiting when she heard one but decided she might as well bite. “Oh? How so?”

“Well,” he drew the word out. “All the fine young ladies are going to see me dancing with you and decide they shouldn’t even bother trying. They can’t hold a candle.”

She laughed lightly while rolling her eyes. “And women really fall for lines like that?”

“Like a ton of bricks.”

They danced in an easy silence for a few minutes until the song ended. As they started back to their chairs, Sally grabbed Burke’s hand and squeezed it fervently. “Just take care of him for me, Pete. Okay? Bring my husband home safe.”

Burke recognized the look in her eye and the jocular retort died on his lips. “I will, Sally. I promise.”

******

Virdon slipped his wedding ring off his finger and twirled it around the tips of his fingers, a nervous habit that drove Sally crazy. He stared at the ceiling of the bomb shelter from his bedroll on the floor. Finally, he cleared his throat and whispered to his companion. “Pete, you awake?”

After Farrow has shown him the ancient picture book, Virdon couldn’t get the image from it out of his mind. The image that had killed his hope of rescue, destroyed his dream of returning home to his family, his life. Farrow’s storybook, an elementary school history text, had shown them a picture of a futuristic-looking New York City, labeled as being from the year 2503. As Burke had so aptly put it, they couldn’t _go_ home, because they were already there. But how?

“Yeah.” Burke lay on his side facing away from Virdon, a blanket pulled up over his shoulders. Both men had bombarded Farrow with questions after they’d seen the picture. Farrow, of course, had no answers for them; he couldn’t even read the caption of the photo, and wouldn’t have known its significance if he could.

“We must’ve come through a... a time warp. We could be five hundred years into the future. Or five thousand,” he added quietly, despair heavy in his voice. “Everyone’s dead... my wife... my son.”

Burke sighed, opening his eyes. His head felt like it was going to break apart, from the jackhammer pounding on the inside of it. What he desperately needed was sleep, but it was as elusive for him as it was for his friend. It was all too much—the crash, waking up to find Jonesy dead and the world turned upside down. “Alan, there’s nothing you can do about it. He said he’d take us to the ship in the morning. If the chronometer’s still working, we’ll know what year it is.”

“What did we do to ourselves?” Virdon wondered aloud. From the book, they knew that human civilization had continued to progress for at least another five hundred years. But sometime after that, things had gone to hell. Virdon could imagine some of the circumstances that would lead to the downfall of Man. Natural disasters. Disease. War... nuclear war. His gut said that whatever happened, human beings brought it on themselves.

The seeds of destruction were already well established in 1980. The overuse of natural resources. The harnessing of forces and energies that humans had proven again and again that they could not entirely control. Violence, hatred, mistrust—the worst of human nature paraded through the news every evening.

Like every idealist who turned his face to the sky, Virdon had hoped that the spirit of exploration, the hope of finding life on another planet, would unite the people of Earth. Maybe they wouldn’t all be holding hands and singing kum-by-ya, but at least they wouldn’t be blowing each other to hell, either.

And for all he knew, maybe his dream came to pass. For at least five-hundred years after they left, the human race seemed to have continued on their merry way. But the memory of the human race was notoriously short and slipshod. Somewhere, sometime, everything had gone off the rails.

_What did we do to ourselves?_

******

The three soldiers spread out on the mossy ground around a small fire, their rifles propped against a log near their heads. Like soldiers in all times, they universally learned to sleep when the opportunity presented itself, regardless of comfort.

Galen, on the other hand, was not a soldier and sat next to a tree, deep in thought.

Zaius’s story of humans from another time—ast-ro-nauts—weighed heavily on his mind. The Sacred Scrolls asserted the dominance of Ape. The scriptures said that when the world formed, out of all the animals who roamed creation, Apes were the ones who rose above the others. They were the only ones with intellect and philosophy. They were the only ones who created a civilization that set them apart from mindless animals.

Humans... He snorted. Now humans were the epitome of mindless. For while they could speak, follow instruction, and use tools, they needed a firm hand to curb their destructive tendencies. Like so many other animals, they thought only of satisfying their baser impulses without regard for consequence, for their future. He had heard tales of roaming bands of wild humans that would move into a region and strip it of all edible food within a matter of weeks. Strip it bare, and then move on to another area. And violence! He’d seen humans fight ferociously over scraps of food or a piece of discarded clothing. They had no capacity for altruism, for loyalty, for courage. Sometimes he wondered if they had any concept of something as basic as love.

No. Humans were animals, like any other animal. Did a cow think about its future? Did it feel any loyalty to the farmer who milked it, who cared for it? Did a horse worry about the comfort of its rider or feel pride when finished a well-traveled journey?

Humans were animals, like any other animal.

But now Zaius himself—head of the High Council, one of the wisest and most learned of their elders—said that humans could be _different_. That these humans, these ast-ro-nauts that they were going to Chalo to investigate had the capacity to be _more_. They could build and operate a machine that _flew_. Not even apes could do such a thing!

Well, not anymore, they couldn’t. Galen knew from studying archaeology that evidence supported the premise that Apes once had a greater knowledge of building and science than they had now. If these humans came from the past as they claimed, maybe the craft they were flying _was_ built by Apes, who sent humans—granted, they would have to be highly trained humans—to face danger, rather than risk the lives of good apes. It made a certain amount of sense.

And wasn’t it possible that these highly trained humans might _appear_ more intelligent, with greater knowledge and capability? Having been trained, might they not _appear_ to have feelings of independence and freedom? Yes, yes, that would explain it.

Except—

Except that the humans he knew could barely be trained to cook a meal or to tend farm animals and crops. They certainly couldn’t learn to operate such a sophisticated machine as this ship that Zaius talked about.

No, these humans must be different somehow than the humans of his time. As his thoughts circled back to that conclusion, the furrow in his brow grew deeper.

What if—

“The errand boy is worried,” Urko’s voice broke into his revere. Leave it to Urko’s stunted intellect to assume that Galen’s philosophical ponderings were worry. “Aren’t you?”

Galen rolled his eyes as the big gorilla towered over him. “No. No, just confused. I always thought humans were unimportant animals.” But now his entire view of the world was being challenged. And he had no one to talk to about it. Certainly not Urko!

“So they are.” In Urko’s world, nothing ever changed. Apes and humans had their places in the natural order, and nothing was going to change that, even if evidence to the contrary smacked him in the muzzle. “Get some sleep. I want to make an early start in the morning.”

Galen sighed and rolled himself up in a blanket as Urko went to check on his soldiers. But sleep was not going to come easily.

******

_T-minus six weeks—June 1980_

Sally Virdon tapped an egg with a little too much force on the edge of the mixing bowl, and the delicate shell crumbled in her hand, coating her fingers with slime. She swore lightly under her breath and dropped the mess into the sink.

She spun the faucet to rinse her hand and wash the mixture down the garbage disposal. But instead of flicking on the switch for the disposal, she suddenly swayed on her feet and grabbed the sides of the sink to steady herself. Head down, she listened to the soothing sound of the running water as she slowly and deliberately breathed in and out. Her chest felt tight, and she could feel the rush of blood in her ears as her heart beat out a staccato rhythm. But as she watched the egg drop bit by bit into the darkness of the disposal, she couldn’t bring herself to turn the device on, to hear the awful grinding sound. A sound so much like what she imagined twisted and buckling metal would make.

She’d had _that dream_ this morning, waking with a scream on her lips to find the other side of the bed empty. A quick glance at the clock told her that Alan would be out having his morning run, and wouldn’t be back for at least an hour. She sat there, her breath coming in quick gasps, the sheen of sweat on her face and chest drying quickly in the air-conditioned coolness. As tears blurred her vision and slid down her cheeks, she laid back down and turned her face into her pillow.

Before every mission, she always had nightmares about Alan dying in the cold vacuum of space. When the destination was Titan, she’d also dreamed about him dying on the distant moon, suffocating when a failure in his environment suit had vented his life-sustaining oxygen into the thin, toxic atmosphere.

In this morning’s dream, Alan’s ship had been lost in what the braintrust at NASA and JPL called “hyperspace”, ripped apart by the stresses of trying to travel faster than light. In her dream, she’d been inside the ship with them, heard the sirens go off, watched the helpless desperation of the three men as they scrambled to avert disaster. She’d listened to the screeching and grinding as the metal skeleton of the ship tore like tissue paper and the ceramic polymer that made up the skin cracked open like an egg.

She somehow heard Alan whisper, “I’m sorry, Sal,” before the ship decompressed and no more sound was possible.

The human body, she knew, could survive several minutes without oxygen. People who had drowned, or who had choked, could be brought back five, sometimes even ten minutes later under the right conditions. But that wasn’t the same thing as being in a vacuum, where it wasn’t just that you couldn’t pull air into your lungs, but that what air was there was sucked out of your body. Not just from the lungs, but from the very blood, shredding the lungs in its rush to escape.

The movies always got it wrong, Alan had told her one night when they’d just come from watching _2001: A Space Odyssey_. Because they had to make it look spectacular, full of special effects and gore, to keep the viewers engaged. In reality, astronauts who died of exposure to a vacuum, whether explosive decompression or a slow leak, showed no outward signs of trauma. They could even be saved if recompressed within one or two minutes, tops. But usually death was quick, so quick that the brain didn’t have time to shut down into unconsciousness first from lack of oxygen.

No, death in the hard vacuum of space was quick but painful, with full cognizance of what was happening.

She was still standing over the sink, clutching it with an iron grip, when the sliding door a few feet away opened. She jumped and let out a shriek as her husband, his shirt drenched in sweat, entered the kitchen. Pressing a hand to her chest, turned toward him by instinct, before she had a chance to school her expression.

“Man, oh man, it’s _hot_ out there—” Virdon stopped short when he saw Sally’s face. He rushed over and put an arm around her, guiding her to sit in a chair. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Alan—” was all she could get out before her voice died and the tears started to flow again.

“Shhhh.” Virdon squatted down in front of Sally, rubbing his hands up and down her arms soothingly. Although he never got used to her outbursts, he’d come to expect them when a mission loomed near. “It’s gonna be okay, Sal.”

She wrapped both arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, heedless of the moisture already turning clammy in the air-conditioned house. As she cried out her fear, Alan continued to make reassuring noises, knowing that nothing he could say would help.

Because any reassurances he made would be lies.

Truth was that the mission _was_ risky. Every mission he went on had some degree of danger; the best they could do was to reduce that risk as much as possible. But he couldn’t give guarantees, at least not honest ones.

But even knowing the danger, the chances of leaving his family behind forever, he _had_ to go. The urge to explore, to discover things that no one had ever seen before, was just too strong. So he simply held his wife while she cried.

After a few minutes, her sobs died down to hiccoughing sniffles. She pulled her face away from him with a wrinkled nose, wiping the remnants of her tears off her cheeks.

“You are _ripe_ , Colonel!” She smiled at his mock indignation. “Go get a shower, and I’ll have some breakfast ready by the time you get back down.”

One way or another, life would go on.

******

The next morning, Farrow led the way out of the secret cave. He’d packed a few essential items into a sack—a few pieces of fruit, some hard bread—then, after considering for a few moments, he went to the alcove and uncovered his storybook, replacing the stones over the white uniforms they’d put there last night. He didn’t know when he might be able to come back to his secret cave.

He’d gone out in the hour just after dawn, while the two astronauts slept, to check if the gorillas were still searching. Although he hadn’t seen any mounted patrols, he also knew that the apes hadn’t given up on finding the strangers. As they passed the outer door to the shelter, he cautiously peered to each side, then turned sharply left. “This way.” He set off at a rapid pace, but Virdon and Burke had no trouble jogging behind him.

He led the astronauts back along the path toward the clearing where their ship had landed. When they passed the tree where he’d sought shelter from Arno’s dog—it seemed so long ago,  but it was just yesterday morning—he told them, “It’s not far.”

“Why bring the book?” Virdon asked him, puffing slightly.

“You didn’t think I was gonna leave it behind, did ya?”

“Wait a minute,” Burke called, and they all stopped. “The apes aren’t looking for you. You don’t have to go with us,” he added quizzically.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Farrow beamed proudly at the thought. “Come on.”

Farrow turned and continued through the brush. Burke and Virdon exchanged an amused look then followed.

When they scaled the small rise leading from the forest to the clearing, Farrow suddenly flattened himself on the ground and motioned for the other two to get down as well. Although his back was currently to them, the figure patrolling around the ship was obviously a gorilla soldier. Farrow tucked his book into the sack, then pushed himself to his feet.

“I’ll get rid of him,” he muttered over his shoulder, then surged into the opening ground.

“Farrow, no!” Virdon objected, and both men reached to stop the old man. But he was already out of range. They hunkered back down under cover and anxiously watched the scene unfold before them.

As Farrow crashed noisily through the bushes, the gorilla spun and raised his rifle. “Halt!”

Farrow ignored him and kept rushing toward him. “The two humans! I just saw them running off that way.” He waved wildly off to the side, away from where the two astronauts crouched. He skidded to a halt a careful distance from the solider, whose rifle was still pointed at Farrow. “Come on, I’ll show ya.”

The soldier tilted his head to one side, considering. Farrow turned and ran a few steps in the direction he wanted to lead the gorilla in, then stopped when he realized the gorilla still hadn’t moved.

“Come on!” he urged the soldier, waving frantically for him to follow. “The two humans! You can catch them!”

The appeal finally worked, and the gorilla quickly loped after Farrow. As soon as the two of them had disappeared into the surrounding trees, Virdon and Burke darted into the clearing. With an ease born of practice and familiarity, they leapt onto the triangular wing that led to the hatch. Virdon reached it first, but paused in the opening as his heart sank into his stomach, his face a mask of anguish.

The interior of the ship was trashed. Panels were pulled off the walls, left dangling by bundles of colored wire. Conduits for wires and fibers hung limply from the ceiling. Every dial and monitor was smashed, every piece of equipment was ripped from its fitting. Even the chairs that they had sat in were torn from their mountings on the floor and lay overturned like broken and discarded toys.

At an impatient tap from Burke behind him, Virdon slowly descended the steps into the interior and heard a groan behind him as Burke got his first look at the wreckage.

Gone. It was all gone. A final glimmer of irrational hope flickered and died in Virdon’s heart.

Burke walked around Virdon as he just stood and stared at the remains of what was once the most sophisticated space vehicle Man had ever built. Now it was just a pile of junk.

Out of the corner of his eye, Virdon’s attention was caught by the panel that Burke was making a beeline for. A series of white numbers glowed brightly on the display. Designed to survive a catastrophic failure of the rest of the ship, the flight recording unit—along with the ship’s chronometer—were the only systems with an independent power source, encased in hardened materials. The unit would survive the destruction of the rest of the ship to provide a final record, if recovered, of what had happened.

Now, it was their only lifeline, their only hope of figuring out when they were and how they’d gotten there.

Virdon took a step closer behind Burke as he leaned over the panel to read the display. The lower chronometer, the one that displayed subjective time that had passed on the ship, was blank. But the upper one, that represented time on Earth, displayed the date as March twenty-first, in the year 3085.

“The year 3085?” Burke read, incredulous. “More than a thousand years in the future.”

“Marvelous,” breathed Virdon. A thousand years!

“Maybe further. That’s when it stopped working.”

Virdon stepped back a pace, grabbed a sagging brace on the ceiling to steady himself as the implications slammed home. He drew in a ragged breath. His training began to reassert itself, and he once again become the mission commander, with a problem to solve.

“Well, we’re just gonna have to find a—” A what? Another ship? Another time warp? Virdon shook his head and let the thought trail off.

Something on the floor caught his eye. He bent down and pulled a photograph from beneath a bundle of wires. Blowing off the dust, he held it up with a sigh. The picture was of his family, his wife Sally and his son Chris, from shortly before the mission. It had been tucked into a monitor on the command panel.

A gunshot rang out, and both astronauts reacted instantly. Virdon tucked the picture into his shirt and bolted up the steps, Burke a half-step behind him.

“Run! Run!” they heard as they emerged from the ship.

Farrow stumbled into the clearing, one hand clutching at his chest. He fell over into the dirt as Virdon jumped from the wing to his side. “Run... run...” the old man gasped, still trying to warn them.

“Farrow!” Virdon cried out as he saw the bright blood coursing over Farrow’s clenched fingers and staining his lips. Burke straddled the prone man and, as Virdon tried to hold Farrow still, pulled open the tattered shirt to reveal the puckered bullet wound. Blood poured from the ugly hole, and a gurgled sound came from it with every breath Farrow struggled to take.

Before either of them could try to help the wounded man, four gorillas with rifles shuffled out from behind the ship. Burke and Virdon looked up, startled, as they stared down the barrels of four rifles trained on them. A moment later, two other apes on horses followed—another gorilla riding a white stallion and a chimpanzee on a brown mare. The gorilla wore a tall helmet that set him apart from the others, along with an air of superiority. The chimpanzee’s horse danced nervously as he struggled to reign it in, but the animal was obviously reacting to its rider’s apprehension.

The two astronauts exchanged an alarmed glance then slowly raised their hands in the air to signal their surrender. They were captured by apes.

 


	5. Chapter 5

_T-minus five months—February 1980_

Virdon stood in the office of John Young, Chief Astronaut, with his hands on his hips. “You take him off the roster, you can find yourself a new mission commander!” he threatened. “I want him on my crew!”

Young leaned forward in his chair, his hands spread out across the desk blotter. He fixed the astronaut with a narrow stare. “You better think long and hard about that statement, Colonel. The backup crew’s been training just as hard as you have….”

Virdon took a deep breath before turning to rest his hip on the other side of the desk. “Look, John, I know Burke’s a loose canon, but he’s also the best pilot I’ve ever seen. Inspired.”

“Alan, the idiot got into bar brawl! There are pictures splashed across every tabloid in the country. It’s a PR nightmare!”

Virdon waved the accusation away. “We can take a little bad press. Besides, if you’d look past the front page headlines, you’d know everyone in the country happens to love him. All he has to do is show up to a presser looking contrite and apologetic, flash one of those dazzling smiles, and all will be forgiven. Trust me, I’ve seen the man charm the venom right out of a rattlesnake.”

“And what about the guy he slugged?” With a challenging look, Young crossed his arms over his chest. “If we’re lucky, he won’t press charges.”

Virdon’s eyebrows shot skyward. “You mean the guy who took a swing at Pete first? He’s going to have enough trouble of his own; the woman he was smacking around _is_ pressing charges. Did you even read Pete’s statement, John? Or the ones given by the witnesses? Or the police report?” He stabbed a finger in Young’s direction.

The older man practically growled. “Yeah, I read them,” he admitted. “I just don’t—”

“John,” Virdon cut in before the Chief could say more, “didn’t I tell you at the start that I would handle him? I _know_ his type. He just needs a firm hand. Yes, he’s brash. He’s impulsive. But he does the wrong things for all the right reasons. He’s the kind of guy who’d take a bullet for his buddy and then carry him out of the jungle anyway. Loyalty, ingenuity, courage. Aren’t these the qualities we are supposed to encourage in these guys? Because that’s sure as anything what I want sitting in the chair next to me when we are on our own for five months.” Virdon’s voice dropped. “Don’t take him off my crew. I need him.”

Young pursed his lips in thought. “All right, Alan. If—and that’s a very big _if_ —I let him stay, you need to keep him on a tight leash. And he needs clean up this mess.”

“Done and done,” Virdon replied quickly.

“I’ll call you both in when I’ve made my final decision. Until then,” he said pointedly, “all I better see in the press is love letters.”

Virdon suppressed a smile. Young’s continued grousing was only for appearances. Burke was still in.

He went searching for his wayward junior officer, finally finding him in the empty crew lounge. A styrofoam cup of coffee sat on the table next to where his head rested on his crossed arms.

Burke lifted his head when he heard Virdon approach. “So how deep a hole have I dug myself, Alan?” His left eye was deeply purpled and swollen, and he still had a steri-strip across the bridge of his nose.

Virdon swiveled a chair around and straddled it. “Let’s put it this way—how’s your Chinese?”

Burke buried his head into his hands again. “Shit.”

“You’re in that pretty deep, too.”

“So that’s it then? Am I washed out?”

“Not yet.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” he insisted defensively. “The cop on the scene breathalyzed me, and I didn’t even blow a point oh-two.”

“At this point, I’m not sure if that makes things better or worse.”

Burke winced. “What’d the Chief say?”

“He threatened to bump you off the roster.”

“And is he going to?”

Virdon tilted his head to one side and clucked his tongue. “I think I convinced him not to.” Burke visibly sagged with relief. “But you’re going to have to fix this. You’ll have to go in front of the press and apologize, make nice for the cameras.”

“Apologize! I wasn’t the one who—”

Virdon quelled him with a stern look.

Burke raked his hands through his hair. “Okay, okay, I get it. Doesn’t matter who started what.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. Just turn on the old Burke charm, right?” He flashed a quick grin, but it faded under Virdon’s continued scrutiny. “Sorry. What else?”

“You’re going to have to be a model of good behavior for the next five months.”

“Got it. I’ll ooze decorum out my pores.” Ducking his head, Burke cast a wary look at Virdon. “Anything else?”

“That’s about it.”

Burke waited a few moments, confusion blooming on his face. “That’s it? You aren’t going to yell at me for being an idiot?”

Virdon’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Nope,” was his only reply.

“No dressing down? No chastising me for being in that bar in the first place?”

“Nope,” he repeated, shrugging slightly. “I figure you’ve beat yourself up enough about it. And since I’m pretty sure it’s not something you are going to do again, I don’t see a point in making you feel worse.”

Burke thought about that for a moment, then finally raised his head to look his friend in the eye. “Thanks, Alan. You didn’t have to go to bat for me like that.”

Virdon chucked him on the arm. “Sure I did. You’d have done the same for me.”

******

Burke and Virdon sat frozen over Farrow’s prone body. Virdon could sense Burke tensing next to him, resisted the urge to put a restraining hand on the younger man’s arm. He could see the animosity in the face of the gorilla who was in charge, judging by his elaborate helmet and his bearing astride the white horse. The chimpanzee stared at them in open curiosity, his nose wiggling furiously. Virdon remembered Farrow’s warning about apes killing humans for even the slightest transgressions.

“Turvo, Macor, keep your guns trained on them,” Urko ordered two of the soldiers. “Moro, Olam, get your horses.” They shouldered their rifles and moved off behind the ship.

As the two remaining soldiers with guns moved closer, Virdon’s mind raced, trying to figure out the best way to deal with this impossible situation. But he couldn’t wrap his mind around talking apes. Intelligent, talking apes!

“We’re not going—” he began.

“Shut up, human!” Urko barked. Virdon swallowed the rest of his spiel, instead risking a quick glance at Burke to make sure he wasn’t about to do anything foolish. “Get up. Slowly.”

Virdon raised his hands a little higher and warily rose to his feet, saw Burke do the same out of the corner of this eye. They were trapped. They couldn’t run in the open clearing without being shot. Their only hope was that they would get a chance to talk their way out of any terminal outcome. But not to this guy, obviously. The chimpanzee seemed more reasonable, but he stayed quiet as he dismounted to watch the proceedings more closely.

In short order, they were commanded to mount two of the horses then tied in place with their hands behind their backs. When no one moved to check on Farrow, Burke’s anger flared. “You’re gonna leave the old man out there like that?”

Urko ignored his outburst and spoke to Moro. “Finish quickly. We have a long way to go.”

Burke exploded, yelling, “Didn’t you hear me? He’ll die! You can’t just—”

Urko viciously backhanded him across the face, would have knocked him from the saddle if he hadn’t been tied in place. Burke sagged across the front of the horse, shaking his head to clear it.

Virdon needed to draw attention away from his friend. “That old man tried to save our lives. You can’t let—”

“I’m getting tired of listening to you, humans.” Urko pulled a pistol from his waist and pointed it at Burke. As he watched the hammer click back, Virdon felt the metallic taste of terror in his throat. Burke still looked stunned, not even aware that his life was being threatened.

“Urko! No.” The chimpanzee Galen spoke deliberately and firmly. He was loathe to test his ability to carry Zaius’s authority, but he was also under strict orders from Zaius not to let Urko kill the two astronauts.

Urko glared down at Galen as the seconds ticked by, then looked away and holstered his weapon.

“Get ready to move out!” he called to his soldiers. The meddlesome chimp could either keep up or be left behind.

Virdon saw a final chance to help Farrow. He leaned toward Galen and asked quietly, “Listen, will you...will you look to our friend?” His conscience still stung over Jones’s death, and he didn’t want to have more blood on his hands.

Galen peered up at Virdon as if he were studying an interesting specimen. After flicking another glance at Burke, he turned and knelt next to Farrow. A close look at the old man was all he needed. “He’s dead,” he informed Virdon. Both captives’ faces fell at the news.

 _How very odd_ , Galen thought as he heard Urko give the call to move out. That the humans appeared sad over the death of their friend—or so the blond one had called him—was not unusual. But the fact that both of them had showed such _concern_ , that the dark-haired one had even risked Urko’s wrath the try to get the old man help. _Very_ unusual behavior in humans, to show such qualities. Zaius had been right. These two humans were special; he hoped he would be allowed to assist in the study of them. They were truly fascinating.

He was about to go mount his own horse to follow the rest of the group when the bag laying next to Farrow caught his eye. Out of the end poked what looked like a book. He picked it up and opened it to see what kind of book a _human_ would be carrying around. Humans couldn’t read, after all, so what use did they have for books?

The page the book fell open to had a picture of a strange looking ape sitting in a cage. The ape was naked and hunched over, with the knuckles of its arms resting on the ground. From the coloring, Galen would guess it was some sort of gorilla, but not like any gorilla he had ever seen. He let out a strangled gasp, then whipped his head around to see if any of the soldiers had heard him or seen him looking at the book. But all their backs were to him as they led the prisoners away. After a moment of shocked indecision, Galen pushed the book deeper in to the bag and took the whole thing with him. If he lingered any longer, he had no doubt that Urko would ride off without him. He quickly mounted his horse and followed, keeping the bag tucked close to him.

******

“Pete, you okay?” Virdon whispered. Burke swayed in his saddle again, then blinked rapidly and shook his head. They’d been riding for about four hours, after stopping in the village to pick up more horses for the soldiers. Virdon’s body was a mass of aches, from the burning in his shoulders and thighs to the numbness in his bound hands. But he was worried about Burke, who seemed uncharacteristically subdued.

“Just fantastic. But do me a favor, would you? Tell the guy with the jackhammer that it’s Miller time, okay?” Every since the big gorilla had belted him, the headache he thought he’d finally shaken that morning had returned with a vengeance. The only thing keeping him upright at all was that he couldn’t decide which he wanted to do more, throw up or pass out.

“Just hang in there. I think—”

“Quiet, humans!” The gorilla called Olam threatened Virdon with his gun, but the astronaut just glared at him, his lips drawn in a tight angry line.

The sun hung low on the horizon, casting long shadows from the trees lining the dirt road they followed. Virdon figured that they had to stop for the night soon. Given the pits and ruts in what passed for a road in these parts, it was foolish to risk the horses breaking a leg in the dark. No, they’d have to stop soon, and both he and Burke would recover enough to start formulating a plan.

Less than half an hour later, Urko called a halt to the group and let the way off the road into the woods. When they found a clearing, he swung down off his horse.

“Make camp,” he told his soldiers, ignoring Galen. “Put the humans next to that tree.” He pointed to the largest tree in the middle of the clearing. “Feed them, then make sure their legs are tied in addition to their hands.”

While one soldier stood guard with his gun trained on the astronauts, another untied their arms and motioned for them to dismount. Virdon hissed at the pins and needles that stabbed his tingling feet and legs. But he rushed to Burke’s side when his friend’s knees began to buckle as he slid from the saddle. He threw one of Burke’s arms over his shoulder and guided him to the tree.

They were given scant rations of stale bread and some fruit, and tepid water to wash it down. Once they were bound again, the gorilla with the gun finally relaxed his guard. They were left alone under the tree and could finally talk in hushed whispers.

“How’re you doing, Pete?” Virdon asked as soon as the guard walked out of range.

“I’ll be fine. Assuming we don’t accidently fall on any bullets in the near future.” He stretched his neck and winced at the movement. “Where do you think they are taking us?”

Virdon squirmed around, trying to shift away from the rock digging into his butt. “I overheard the chimpanzee say they were taking us to their High Council. They want us to—” He’d dislodged the rock and pushed it further behind him when he paused, taking on a distracted look. He dropped his voice to a barely audible murmur. “Hang on. This rock has a sharp edge. I’m gonna see if I can use it to cut these ropes. Keep an eye on the guard.”

******

As the gorilla soldiers shared camaraderie around their fire, Galen found a mossy piece of ground partially obscured from their sight to pitch his bedroll. He wanted to make sure they couldn’t see the book he was examining.

When he pulled it out of the bag, it fell open to the page he had glimpsed earlier. The gorilla in a cage stared out at him with flat, black eyes beneath a protruding brow. There was no spark of intelligence in those eyes, no sentience. Surely this creature couldn’t really be any distant ancestor of his. He wanted to turn the page, but he couldn’t drag his eyes away from the sight of an ape in captivity, surrounded by bars and a cold, sterile environment. Things he normally only associated with humans.

Eventually, he reached up a shaking hand and flipped to another page. Even the text of this strange book was like none he had ever seen before. Obviously it had not been written by hand; it was so small and even. He had heard of books found in the ruins of old cities, that were made with such type. Reading then entire book would take hours, a luxury of time he didn’t have right now. But if he had a chance, he would be very interested to see what it had to say. For now, he continued shuffling pages until he came to another large picture.

This one showed a cavernous building filled with strange machines. And humans everywhere—walking on raised platforms between large metal cylinders that dwarfed the people around them. Humans stood at the controls of these enormous machines. Nowhere was there an ape to be found. Galen frowned and thumbed to another page.

This picture showed the sky and a long tapered tube with two flat projections attached to it opposite each other. The cylinder had letters drawn on the side of it, and rows of what looked like small windows. He had no way to tell the scale of it against the sea of blue and white behind it, but he had the impression it was massive.

He shook his head and glanced over at the two humans bound beneath the tree. Is this the world they had come from? A world of alien machines and technologies he could never hope to understand? A world where humans had the knowledge to build and run intricate equipment, and apes were unintelligent animals kept in cages?

No, surely this book was a work of fiction. The Sacred Scrolls said—

A new thought stole its way into his mind. A heresy that made him shudder and push it away as he tried desperately to unthink it.

What if the Sacred Scrolls were... wrong?

******

Virdon watched the guard pass a few feet away as he made another circuit of the camp. As soon as he was past, Virdon’s attention shifted.

“How’s it coming?” Burke whispered. He turned his head nervously from side to side, alert for the approach of any of their ape captors.

“A few more seconds.” Virdon’s shoulders moved almost imperceptibly as he rubbed the ropes binding his hands against the sharp rock edge. He could feel the rope beginning to fray, then suddenly it let loose, and his hands were free.

He whispered to Burke. “Okay, turn around.” If they could both get loose before the guard completed his march around the perimeter of the camp, they might have a chance to fight their way to freedom.

Burke started to shift, then stopped suddenly. “Un-uh.” When Virdon looked at him quizzically, he jerked his head at the approaching chimpanzee.

Galen crept closer to the two humans, his face a mask of confusion. When he stopped a few feet away and just stared, Burke sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Hi,” Burke said in a flat, annoyed voice.

After staring at the two humans for a few more moments, Galen finally approached and squatted down. “You know, you could have been killed back there,” he admonished Burke, “worrying about that old human.”

“He was a friend,” Burke replied, a little heatedly.

“Is a friend that important to you?”

Virdon answered in an incredulous tone, “Yes.”

“Oh.” Galen’s look of confused interest deepened. “Your very unusual for humans.”

Virdon needed to shine the chimp along as soon as possible, so they could try to finish slipping their bonds before a guard noticed them. “Yeah, well, we’re also very tired. We’d like to get some sleep.” He repositioned his hands closer together behind his back so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that he was free if Galen decided to walk around them.

“Yeah,” Pete echoed as he faked an enormous yawn, “really tired.” He leaned back on his bound arms and closed his eyes. Virdon rested against the tree, further concealing his hands.

Galen shrugged and started to walk away, then stopped as if something suddenly occurred to him. He shuffled closer again and knelt. Burke cracked an eyelid when he heard the footfalls returning. He let out a impatient huff and exchanged a frustrated glance with Virdon.

“Tell me, is it... is it true that you are from this world, but from another time?”

Virdon considered for a moment, then decided maybe truth was their best chance. “Yes.”

Galen scoffed at him. “Oh, now how is that possible?”

Virdon and Burke were both getting annoyed. What was it going to take to get this ape to go away? Virdon tried again to shut down the conversation. “It just happened. We don’t know. Look, can we talk about this some other time? Tomorrow maybe?”

“I found this... book, back near the ship.” He looked over his shoulder to where it was hidden under his bedroll. “And it had pictures, and it showed humans building things and running strange machines.”

“It’s true. They did,” Virdon insisted.

Galen scoffed again, making a rude noise in the back of his throat. “That book can’t be true.”

“Yes, it is,” Burke answered hotly. The chimp’s attitude was really starting to wear on his nerves. “Humans built big cities. They built machines that swam in the sea, through the air.”

“And, uh,” Galen’s expression grew dark, “you kept apes in cages?” The shamefaced expressions of the astronauts answered for them. Galen tilted his head to one side. “Why?”

Virdon took at deep, calming breath, and his voice took on the same tone he used to explain difficult concepts to his son. “Well, apes were considered wild animals in those days. They weren’t as intelligent as you are.”

“That is _not_ true.”

“Sorry, buster, it is.” Burke burst out.

“That is not true! No, it’s all lies!” Galen yelled at them. “Apes have always ruled the world. Always!”

Burke turned away from the chimp’s vehemence, the loud noise making him grimace as his head throbbed.

Galen hissed at them and backpedaled as he pushed himself off the ground. He almost ran into Macor as he returned from his check of the perimeter. Galen pointed to the humans. “Y-Y-You check their ropes,” he stammered at the gorilla. “You make sure that they can’t escape!” Then he ran off back to his bedroll. He didn’t want to look at these awful humans right now.

Macor loped over to the prisoners, slinging his rifle over his shoulder by the strap. He squatted down and tugged on the ropes around Burke’s legs, then Virdon’s. As he knelt over Virdon’s ropes, the human brought his hands from behind his back and raised them in a double fist above the gorilla’s head. But before he could strike, he hear the hammer of a gun being pulled back right next to his ear. He froze and slowly turned to see Urko next to him, the gorilla’s pistol pointed directly at his head. Urko drew back slightly, and before the human could reach, pistol whipped him across the temple. Virdon slumped against Burke, unconscious.

“Alan!” Burke yelled, struggling furiously to get free and come to the aid of his friend. When the gun swung around to point at him, he stopped and fumed silently.

Urko knelt, the gun still trained on Burke, and picked up the rock and the frayed rope behind Virdon. He threw the rock away in disgust, then rounded on Macor.

“Tie his hands again, and this time, make sure they are secure!”

******

“My master will be angry with me for letting you have this,” Ullman complained as he opened the special cabinet in Zaius’s office. He backed away quickly in terror as Urko strode toward him.

“I will be angrier if you don’t!” He pushed the human out of the way and reached for the ancient box that sat on a shelf just below eye level. The box had three circular holes cut into it, two of which nestled strange metallic spheres. The spheres had several studs dotting their surfaces, as well as a single dial. Urko plucked one of the devices out of the box and turned it over in his hand as he examined it. Yes, this would do nicely as a demonstration. He tucked the item into a pouch on his belt and left the room without another word.

If the High Council didn’t understand how dangerous these humans were, he’d _make_ them understand.

******

_T-minus seven months—New Years 1980_

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

“Happy New Year!”

As the crowd shouted in unison, Burke blew his paper noisemaker, aimed carefully so that as the end unrolled, it tapped Susan in the vee of her low-cut party dress.

“Pete!” She laughed, playfully smacking him on the chest.

He dropped the hand with the party novelty and snaked it around her waist to pull her closer. “Happy New Year,” he murmured as he pressed his lips to hers. He was a bit tipsy, having imbibed a few glasses of Jack and Coke over the evening. And he could taste the fruity residue of his date’s Mai Tai on her lips. He deepened the kiss as she let out a pleased little hum.

Burke heard a mocking voice. “Okay, break it up, you two.” Virdon, being a good host, held out two flutes of champagne to the couple, then stepped away to distribute more.

Turning with his arm still around Susan, Burke watched Virdon finish handing out champagne then hop lightly onto a scuffed and worn coffee table. Virdon held aloft his own glass and tapped it with a fork until the crowd quieted down. _Oh boy_ , Burke thought with wry amusement, _the Colonel is going to make a speech_.

Virdon cleared his throat. “I just want to say how happy Sally and I are to be spending New Years Eve in the company of so many wonderful friends.” He smiled down at his wife, who stood next to the table. “This next year is going to be monumental, not just for me, Steve, and Pete—”

“We goin’ somewhere, Alan?” Jones heckled, drawing chuckles from the crowd.

“—but for everyone in this room, hopefully for everyone in the whole world.” He took a deep breath as the gravity of that statement sank in, as well as his next one. “Nineteen-eighty may be the year we discover that life exists elsewhere in the universe, that we are not unique or alone. Because of the hard work and ingenuity of so many people, we, as a race, are on the brink of truly being able to travel freely among the stars. And that’s amazing, considering how far we’ve come in just this century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, powered human flight wasn’t even possible. And now, eighty years later, we are ready to travel to another star.

“When I was a kid growing up in Texas—”

Now it was Burke’s turn to heckle. “With the dinosaurs!” The ten year age difference between Virdon and his junior officers was a constant source of ribbing.

Like he did with Jones, Virdon ignored Burke. “—I would lay out in the field at night looking at the stars, and I _knew_ I wanted to be up there with them someday. And in,” he turned his wrist to look at his watch, eliciting a few titters from his guests, “six months, twenty-two days, ten hours, and fifty-five minutes,” he raised his voice to be heard as the laughter swelled, “give or take a few seconds, that’s exactly where we are going to go!”

He waited a few moments until the shouts and whistles of agreement and excitement died down again.

“So I just want to say thank you for being here to ring in 1980 with us,” he raised his glass toward the crowd. “And here’s to being together again when 1981 arrives.” He drained his glass of champagne in one draught, then bent down to kiss Sally to the cheers and clapping of his friends.

******

“Enemies of the state must be put to death!” Urko glared at the two humans who stood before him. Then he turned back to address the group of elderly chimpanzees and orangutans gathered around a large wooden table. “I remind the High Council that this is our law. And the law must be obeyed.”

“What makes us enemies?” Virdon probed. “We haven’t done anything!”

“Your ambitions are enemies. Your thoughts are enemies.”

Burke spoke up, his voice tight and harsh. “What’s your name, pal? Hitler? Stalin? Mussolini?”

“Silence,” Zaius called from his seat. He would not tolerate disrespect from these upstart humans. Galen hovered next to him, watching the proceeding with rapt interest.

One of the other chimpanzees, Grundig, addressed the astronauts. “Do you believe humans and apes are equal?”

“In this world or ours?” Virdon asked.

Proto, one of the youngest orangutans on the Council, chopped at the air with his hand. “In any world!”

“I don’t know about any world, but I believe that all intelligent creatures should learn to live and work with each other as equals.”

The room erupted. Shouts of “Sacrilege! Heresy!” punctuated the din. Zaius rapped furiously on the table with a wooden mallet. “Silence!” he shouted repeatedly. Galen stared at the astronauts, tilting his head to one side in thought.

“They have convicted themselves, Zaius! Do you want this sacrilegious heresy to infect the rest of the humans?” Urko demanded.

“Certainly not, Urko. And by questioning them, we will learn how to avoid it.”

“Will you learn to avoid destruction?”

“What destruction?” Virdon interjected. “We don’t intend any destruction.”

“You’re human, aren’t you?” He pulled the grenade he’d taken from Zaius’s office from his belt. “Would an ape have created such an instrument?” He began to turn the dial on the face of the sphere.

“Urko! You had no right to take that.” Zaius protested, pushing himself out of his chair.

Urko ignored the elderly orangutan and tossed the grenade at the door to the Council chamber. As it hit the iron bound wood, it detonated in a loud explosion. Everyone in the chamber ducked and covered their heads against the flash of light. When the smoke cleared and they could see again, the door was gone, leaving only splintered planks.

“There is the real threat! There is the danger!”

Zaius slowly and deliberately clapped, to the surprise of the other apes. “Very good, Urko.” The other apes warily settled back into their chairs. “The object you stole from my cabinet has provided a most dramatic display, proving only the importance of keeping these two humans,” he pointed at Virdon and Burke, “alive until we learn how they create such destruction! So we can prevent it, if in future, there are others like them.”

“Yes, I agree,” Proto shouted.

“It’s true,” Grundig added. “Question them more!”

“I’m sure that even the great Urko cannot quarrel with this decision.”

Urko stalked over to the two humans, his face drawn up in a tight scowl. “I’ll quarrel with anything that keeps these two humans alive.”


	6. Chapter 6

_T-minus fourteen months—May 1979_

Burke yawned and slumped further into the sagging couch. He glanced at his watch. One-fifteen in the morning. Why did babies always wait until the middle of the night to be born?

Virdon paced up and down the cracked linoleum of the waiting room floor. Unlike Burke, he’d been through this before and had too much nervous energy to sit, even at this late hour. They both still wore their blue jumpsuits, having rushed over straight from the base when the call came in several hours ago.

“You know, you’re going to wear a hole in that already sad floor if you keep this up,” Burke quipped as Virdon turned for another circuit of the room. “I think you are on lap three-hundred and ninety-two. Only a hundred and eight more to go if this were Indianapolis.”

With a self-conscious smirk, Virdon veered and flopped into the chair next to where Burke sprawled on the sofa. But he scooted to the edge of the seat, his knees almost bumping into Burke’s, as they supported his elbows and clasped hands.

“How can you just sit there like that? Aren’t you even a little bit excited?”

“We’ve been here for eight hours, Alan. Excited ran out about five hours ago.” Burke sighed, raked both hands through his hair. “Besides, it’s not _my_ kid. I’m just here for moral support.” Burke’s grin belied his good natured grousing. Truth was, he wouldn’t miss being there for his friend for anything.

Virdon thought back to Chris’s birth, when he’d been a newly minted Captain. He and Sally had been trying for a while—had given up _trying_ actually—and Sally had started to make muttering noises about looking into other options. And then one day she’d met him at the door with a test result in her hand and tears in her eyes.

And while the pregnancy had gone easily enough, the delivery had...complications. Sally had spent a week in intensive care afterward, leaving Alan to split his time between caring for his infant son and sitting at his wife’s beside when he could. In time, Sally had recovered, but the doctors broke the hard news to both of them. She would have no more children. Virdon didn’t care. His son was perfect and, along with Sally, was all he’d ever needed.

“Sometimes the first one takes a while, Pete. If you’re tired, just imagine how Michelle must feel. She’s been at this for the last _twenty_ hours.”

Burke shook his head, chuckling. “And despite hearing all the stories about how awful it is, people still put themselves through it. I just don’t get it.”

“Trust me, it’s worth every second.”

“If you say so.” Burke leaned back and shut his eyes. “Wake me when it gets interesting.”

Jones had only been allowed back into the laboring area two hours ago, which meant the doctor thought the delivery would be soon. Before that, Virdon and Burke had distracted him with cards, jokes, stories—even pulled a battered checkerboard down from a shelf in the waiting area. They’d had to use change to fill in for a few missing checkers. While Burke and Jones had half-heartedly played checkers, Virdon made a few of runs to the cafeteria, and later the vending machine, for coffee.

Picking up a tattered copy of _Auto Mechanic_ , Virdon flipped through the pages without really reading it.

He looked up a few minutes later when the automatic door to the restricted area hummed as it swung open. A figure dressed in a blue surgical gown and cap came jogging out then broke into an enormous grin as he approached the waiting area.

Virdon kicked Burke, who immediately peeled open an eyelid. “It just got interesting,” Virdon announced as he stood. Burke popped up beside him with a yawn.

Jones pulled the cap off his head. “It’s a girl! Most beautiful thing I ever saw. Michelle’s tired, but fine.”

“Hey hey!” Virdon exclaimed and pulled Jones into a quick hug, thumping him soundly on the back.

“That’s great!” Burke echoed, taking his turn to embrace Jones. “A girl, huh? Oh man, you are never going to sleep again.”

“What are you naming her, Steve?” Virdon asked.

“Natalie Rose.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Had to give her something pretty to go with that lackluster last name,” Jones joked. “C’mon,” he waved for them to follow him as he turned to continue down the hallway. “They should just be getting her settled in the nursery, so Michelle can get some sleep. You can see her for yourself.”

Burke and Virdon exchanged an amused glance then trailed after Jones.

The hallways of the hospital were quiet and subdued at this hour, even in the maternity ward. One white-uniformed nurse passed them, rapidly pushing an empty, cart-like bassinet toward the delivery area.

Huge plate glass windows afforded a view of the nursery from the hallway. One window was covered with blinds that were louvered closed, but the second window was unobstructed.

Jones stepped up to the glass and waved until he caught the attention of one of the nurses. He pointed toward the back of the nursery, where another nurse in pastel yellow surgical scrubs was swaddling a baby in a white blanket. Next to her waited a bassinet labeled with a pink index card with “Jones” written in big letters.

The nurse nodded and held up a finger to forestall them. While she maneuvered through the rows of cradles, Jones bounced on the balls of his feet while behind his back, Burke stifled a yawn. Virdon punched Burke lightly on the arm and gave him a mild look of reproach.

As the nurse approached the glass with the swaddled bundle in her arms, Virdon stepped closer. Burke stayed where he was, but craned his neck to look over Jones’s shoulder. Jones nodded at the nurse as the grin on his face grew impossibly wider.

A tiny face peeked out from the folds of the blanket, red and very wrinkled.

“She’s beautiful,” Virdon told Jones.

_Looks like a boxing glove_ , Burke thought, but echoed Virdon’s sentiment out loud. Then he clapped Jones on the back. “Congratulations, buddy.”

******

After Urko’s demonstration of the destructive power of human technology, Zaius adjourned the meeting of the High Council until heated tempers cooled and the sharp spike of fear blunted. While their fate was being decided, the astronauts were taken to an isolated jail.

During the quick wagon ride to their prison, Virdon watched the landscape go by beyond the barred cage enclosing the wagon. In addition to the two gorillas in the driver’s box, another walked behind the wagon, rifle held at the ready.

“Where do you think he got that grenade, Alan?” Burke whispered. “He said it was made by humans.”

“It looked more advanced than anything from our time. But probably military grade. Who knows how many caches of weapons were left lying around after the human race fell. They probably dug one up somewhere.” Virdon theorized. An idea began forming. If that technology was still around, maybe there was more. Maybe there were even conclaves of advanced humans hidden somewhere. If they could just find them....

The wagon lurched and threw him against the bars, a harsh reminder that first they needed to survive until tomorrow. The image of Farrow, gunned down and left laying in the dirt to die, still haunted him. And Jonesy. He didn’t even know what happened to Jonesy, whether the apes buried him or left his body somewhere to be picked over by scavengers. But it was obvious that human life meant little to the apes, and he and Burke were now labeled enemies of the state. There prospects for continued survival were bleak.

The wagon rolled to a stop in front of a squat building. No windows broke up the expanses of gray stone walls, just a single iron-bound wooden door with a small, barred cutout. Two gorillas pointed rifles at them and ordered them out of the wagon cage when the third opened the gate on the back. After giving Burke a slight shake of his head not to try anything, Virdon jumped down. When a rifle butt jammed into his back, Virdon stumbled forward toward the door to the jail. Burke received similar treatment. Trying to escape from three armed gorillas would only get them shot sooner.

******

Inside the jail, Urko waited impatiently. He had ridden directly over to the jail when the Council meeting had recessed. He didn’t want to spend any more time in the company of those simpering orangutans and chimpanzees than necessary. And on the journey, he began to formulate a plan. _He_ would insure that the humans and the danger they represented were neutralized without the High Council having to dirty their precious intellectual hands.

The front door opened, and his soldiers escorted the two humans inside. They pushed the blond one towards the open cell, and when both were inside, slammed the door closed. His lieutenant Olam turned the key in the lock. When the other two gorillas had gone into the guards’ room, Urko turned toward Olam.

“You know what I expect you to do.” Urko said mysteriously. Olam nodded.

Olam had arranged “accidents” for humans in the past at Urko’s command. It would be a simple thing to stage an “escape attempt” to provide a convenient excuse to kill these two humans.

Urko grinned, a fearsome expression that held no mirth. “After dark.”

******

“That Urko guy is definitely _not_ going on my Christmas card list,” Burke announced when the door to their cell clanked shut, leaving them alone. He turned in a circle, taking in the tiny space and dirt floor covered only with straw.

Virdon nodded agreement. “I just hope we don’t end up finding out how the turkey feels on Thanksgiving.”

Burke leaned against a wall and slid down to sit with his knees drawn up in front of him. “So what’s the plan, chief?”

“Well, obviously, we need to get back to the ship, see if anything there is salvageable—”

“Whoa, whoa. I’m not talking about getting off the planet, I’m talking about getting out of this jail!” Burke ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Alan, I can’t believe you think that ship is ever going to fly again!” He stabbed a finger in Virdon’s direction. “We’ll be lucky to live to see tomorrow if we don’t get out of here!”

“That’s enough, Major!” Virdon barked, fed up with Burke’s pessimism and borderline insubordination. He took a deep breath. “Look, we aren’t going to get anywhere bouncing off the walls at each other like this. Fine. Priority one, we need to get out of this jail. We both agree on that.” He shrugged. “We’re just going to have to stay alert and be ready to take advantage of any opportunity. Unless you have a grand masterful plan?”

Burke shook his head. “Sorry, Al, I know we are both pretty strung out right now. I don’t have any great ideas either. Just like you said, watch for a chance and take it. And hope we don’t get shot.”

Virdon sat in the straw next to Burke and leaned back against the stone wall. For now, they would wait. And hope.

******

Zaius nervously fingered the last grenade from his cabinet. Urko stealing its mate was not a move he’d anticipated, and although he saw it for the shameless stunt that it was, other members of the Council had been swayed by fear. How could they not understand the importance of keeping these two humans alive for study?

“Zaius?” Galen’s hesitant voice intruded on his thoughts.

“Yes?” he replied, still distracted as he pondered how the tiny device in his hands could unleash such a great destructive force as they had seen earlier that very day.

Galen leaned heavily on the chair in front of Zaius’s desk. He took a deep breath to screw up his courage. “Was there ever a time when humans controlled the world and apes were kept behind bars?” The question was dangerous, but he _had_ to know if the astronauts had spoken the truth.

Zaius stiffened, then clucked his tongue. “I said you had a great deal to learn, but that didn’t include heresy.” He nestled the grenade back into its box and closed the cabinet door. He vowed to find a way to lock it, to prevent future thefts. Then he turned toward his erstwhile assistant.

Galen approached Zaius, dropping his voice lower. “Maybe, uh, maybe they were right, Zaius. Maybe the world would be better if no creature controlled another, if all worked together as equals.”

The young chimp’s earnestness tugged at Zaius’s conscience. The boy _did_ have much to learn—about himself, about the world, about the delicate control the ape government maintained over the human population. And why. Best he start learning now that some questions shouldn’t be asked. “I could have you imprisoned for that,” he said mildly, letting the threat hang in the air between them.

Galen was suitably taken aback. “Zaius!” he exclaimed in a shocked tone. “You haven’t answered my question.” How could Zaius ignore the philosophical implications of what the humans represented?

Zaius’s eyes grew wide with rage. “I never _heard_ the question!” he yelled. He stormed away, a clear dismissal.

Galen closed his eyes in dismay, then walked out of Zaius’s office, shaking his head as a profound sense of sadness and confusion enveloped him. As he passed through the outer room, he noticed the servant Ullman wiping down the table where just an hour ago, he and Zaius had shared their midday meal. When Galen approached, Ullman dropped his cloth on the table and scurried to the door to open it for him.

Galen paused in the doorway. “Ullman?” He turned back to the obsequious man.

“Yes, sir?” Ullman answered immediately.

“What’s it like... being a human?”

Ullman’s brow knit together in confusion. “What’s it... like, sir?” he repeated, clearly unsure how to answer. Galen could also sense the man’s underlying fear at giving an answer that would anger the chimp.

Galen laughed nervously to try to diffuse the anxiety he’d inadvertently caused. “Never mind.”

“Yes, sir.” Ullman’s relief was obvious as Galen turned to leave.

Clearly, Ullman wasn’t going to have any answers for him. He, like all the humans from _this_ time, didn’t have the intellectual capacity to consider even basic philosophical questions. What was his purpose? What was his reason for existing? What was his place in the greater scheme of the Universe? These things simply didn’t occur to humans.

Except now Galen knew of two humans who would not only understand those questions, but had probably pondered the answers. He had to go to the jail and talk to Virdon and Burke.

******

_T-minus twenty months—Christmas 1978_

“Oh, wow, Dad!” Chris Virdon ripped the brightly colored paper off another box. He dropped the scrap into the rest of the litter around him in the family room. Off to one side was a carefully stacked pile of gifts. “A BB gun! Far out!”

Alan Virdon chuckled to hear the popular exclamation from his son, then he caught the scorching glare his wife shot his way.

“A gun, Alan!” she hissed in his ear. “You gave our child a gun?”

“It’s just a BB gun, Sal. He’s nine. By the time I was his age, I was shooting the real thing.” He kept his voice low as well, despite Chris’s inattention as he gently set the long, thin box aside. The boy jumped up and circled the Christmas tree to see what other presents he might have missed.

“And you lived on a farm with coyotes and mountain lions. Not in downtown Houston.” She shook her head, her tone heavy with disappointment. “Oh, Alan.”

“He’s been wanting one so much, ever since he shot one at summer camp.” Alan rubbed his wife’s arm to try to placate her. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach him how to use it safely, before...,” he let the sentence trail off unfinished. _Before I leave on the mission._ He had so much he wanted to do with Chris before he left for interstellar space. Teaching him to shoot a gun, even a BB gun, was one of those things.

Sally’s breath hitched at the reminder of Alan’s eventual departure. “You better, mister. Because the first time he shoots one of the neighbor’s cats, I’m locking it away in a closet.” She pushed herself off the sofa and padded away in the direction of the kitchen, to check on the turkey.

Now it was Alan’s turn to shake his head. He reached down and picked up the box at his feet, turned it over to look at the drawing of the gun on the outside. “Chris, come here.”

Chris bounded back to his father, a big grin still splitting his face. He squirmed into Alan’s lap. “It’s a great gun, Dad. Can we go shoot it now?”

“Maybe later, after dinner. But first we need to go over all the rules, son.”

Chris ran his hand over box, his finger pausing when it found the list of features on the outside. “Rules? Like at scout camp?” he asked, distractedly. “Oh, look, it’s got a real sighting scope on it!”

Alan gently pulled the box from his son’s hands and leaned it against the couch on the other side of his legs. “Yes, rules. You can’t own a weapon without knowing how to be safe with it, Chris.”

“But it’s just a toy—”

“No, son, it’s a weapon. Not a very powerful weapon, but it can still be dangerous. And that means it’s a big responsibility. I don’t want you to hurt yourself...or anyone else. Are you ready for that responsibility?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy answered solemnly.

“First, you have to make sure wherever you are shooting is secure. That no one else is anywhere in front of you where they could accidently get hit. And you only shoot at non-living targets—paper, cans, things like that.” He caught a look of disappointment in his son’s eye. “No shooting anything living, Chris.”

“Aww, dad,” he whined, “not even like frogs and stuff?”

“No, not even frogs.”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t hurt things for no reason, son. Tell me, if you were to shoot a frog, what would you do with it? Would you bring it home and ask your mother to cook it?” He raised an eyebrow. “And if she did, would you eat it?”

“Ewwww,” Chris groaned. “That’s just gross, dad.”

“Exactly. Or is a frog a dangerous animal that’s going to attack you with its giant, sharp teeth, and you need to shoot it to protect yourself?” Alan poked Chris in the ribs with two curled fingers.

Chris giggled, “No, dad. Frogs don’t have teeth. They do have long, sticky tongues, though.”

“So, not dangerous?” Alan asked patiently.

“No, not really. Although I heard that if they pee on you, you can get warts.”

Alan smiled. “So, not good to eat and not dangerous, pee and warts aside.” His voice turned more serious. “Then it sounds to me like there’s no good reason to kill them except because you can.” He looked his son in the eye, waiting for the boy to make the connection himself.

“I-I guess not.” His face scrunched up as his mind worked furiously. “So what about something that _is_ dangerous, like a snake maybe... or a coyote!” he finished with excited awe.

“Yes, those things can be dangerous, but they are also a lot bigger and faster than a frog. If you shot at them and hit them, it’d only make them angry and _more_ likely to attack you. So it’s better to just run away from them.”

“But I want to learn to hunt like you and Uncle Ernie do.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you practice with the BB gun and get really good with it, when I get back from my trip into space, we’ll talk about teaching you to shoot something you can use to hunt. Or at least letting you come along on a trip sometime.”

The boy’s face lit up. “Really? That’s so far out!”

In his youth, Chris had no idea of exactly _how_ far out that was going to be.

******

Galen sat on the dirt floor opposite the two humans. He’d used his authority as Zaius’s assistant—assuming he still had the position—to gain admittance to their cell. He wasn’t sure they’d be willing to talk to him, or even what to expect if they did agree, but they seemed just as eager as he was.

His nose wiggled as he asked sheepishly, “Everything I saw in that book was true, wasn’t it?”

“We told you it was,” the one named Virdon replied.

“Ahhh,” he sighed. “It’s so hard to believe.”

“You can say that again,” Burke added dryly.

“I was always taught to believe that humans—” He was about to say ‘that humans were dumb animals’ but stopped at the looks on the astronauts’ faces. They might not take kindly to being called ‘dumb’ _or_ ‘animals’. “I mean, it’s just so—” he stopped again when Virdon raised an eyebrow and smirked at his discomfort. He took a deep breath and tried another tact. “Listen, where you come from, are all humans as intelligent as you are?” Maybe these two were the exception and not the rule.

Burke snorted. “Right now, I think they were all twice as smart,” he replied mysteriously.

“Oh?” Galen hummed, as Burke’s sarcasm sailed over his head.

“Tell me,” Virdon began as he shifted position, sitting forward with interest, “are there any humans in this world who build things—machines, anything?”

Galen shook his head. “Oh, no.”

Virdon had a sudden thought. “What about that grenade?”

“Hmm?” These humans used a lot of strange words.

“That thing that Urko exploded,” Virdon explained. “Who would know where it came from?”

“Oh, uh, Zaius I suppose. But why?”

“That’s a good question, Alan. What difference does it make?”

“I’ve been thinking. The input record of our flight is still aboard ship,” Virdon explained. Burke looked up at him with a frown. “Everything that happened from the time we left home until we landed back here on Earth is recorded on that magnetic disk. Now, all we have to do is run it through a computer, analyze what went wrong, reverse the process, and we can get back home again.” He finished with a hopeful smile, not realizing his enthusiasm wasn’t shared.

“You’re out of your mind,” Burke told Virdon with a glare.

“What’s a computer?” Galen asked.

Virdon was on a roll and ignored them both. “And maybe the humans who made that grenade are still on Earth. And maybe they have the knowledge to—”

“To what?” Burke overrode him hotly. “Build a spaceship? And a computer?”

“Yeah!” Virdon threw back at him as he stood up. He felt like he was finally formulating a plan, and Burke’s pessimism was a wet blanket. “Maybe.”

Burke let out a frustrated huff.

“What is a computer?” Galen asked again, unable to contain his curiosity.

The younger astronaut pushed himself to his feet and rounded on Virdon. “Answer his question, Alan,” he growled dryly, “while I get myself moved to another cell.”

He started to turn away, but Virdon grabbed his arm and swung him back. “Look, I know it’s wild. But it’s a hope, isn’t it?” _And right now, hope is all that’s keeping me going_ , he thought. Hope of getting back home to his family.

“Sure, Alan.” Burke’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Sure it is.”

“You want to get home, don’t you?” Virdon shook his head at Burke’s attitude.

Galen looked back and forth between the two humans as their voices grew in volume. Watching them argue was fascinating.

“Home!” Burke shouted, stepping further into Virdon’s personal space. “All I’m worried about is staying alive!”

The two humans stared at each other for a moment, both of their expressions grim. Finally, Burke turned away with a disgusted snort and sat back down, began plucking at the straw beneath him.

Virdon hunkered back down in front of the chimp. His next gambit was a risky one. “Galen, you want to visit _our_ time period, don’t you?”

“Oooohhh, I-I-I really don’t know about—” he stammered. He waved a hand nervously. “It _would_ be interesting, but I-I-I don’t really think I want to.”

Virdon pressed the chimp’s uncertainty. “Help us to get out of here.”

“What?” Galen exclaimed, outraged. “Certainly not!” He stood up quickly. “Just because I find you interesting to talk to doesn’t mean that I am willing to commit treason!” He scoffed that Virdon would think he’d even _consider_ betraying his own kind for a couple of humans, no matter how interesting.

Virdon sat down again, temporarily defeated. “Okay, okay. All right.” He held out a placating hand.

Galen whined in the back of his throat. He _did_ feel badly for the astronauts. “I’m sorry.” Virdon waved his apology away. “I would like to talk to you some more about that book. Perhaps I could come back later tonight,” he asked softly.

Burke pushed both hands through his hair. One thing he could say for sure, Galen was tenacious. “Be our guest,” he quipped, nodding at the prison walls surrounding them. It wasn’t like he and Virdon had any more pressing engagements.

“Oh.” Galen nodded and smiled sadly. “Well, thank you.” He took a step to toward the door and spoke through the small window to the guard. “Open up.” Then he turned back to the two humans one last time. “I _am_ sorry.”

The key rattled in the lock and the door opened just enough to permit Galen to depart. When the door closed and they heard the snick of the lock, Burke sagged back against the wall. “Nice try,” he told Virdon.

Virdon’s reply was low and disconsolate. “Yeah. Nice try.”

******

Burke and Virdon brooded quietly in the wake of Galen’s departure, each lost in his own thoughts. Burke paced the small cell for a while, arms crossed over his chest as he worried at a fingernail with his teeth. Virdon replayed the conversation with Galen over in his mind, sure that he’d read the chimp correctly. Galen _wanted_ to help them; he just needed to be persuaded. If he came back later that evening, Virdon would try again to find the right words to win him over completely as an ally.

Virdon looked up when Burke’s stomach rumbled loudly in the small space. They hadn’t been fed anything since earlier that day, when they’d been given some bread and thin soup before their interrogation by the High Council.

Burke dropped back onto the straw next to Virdon.

“You think they are going to feed us at some point?” The light in their cell was provided by ensconced oil lamps bolted high up on the walls. But from the little bit of light that came through the window in the cell door, they could tell it was getting dark outside.

Virdon shrugged. Who knew when another meal would be forthcoming?

A short time later, the door opened to admit a guard with a wooden bowl of food in one hand, his rifle held alertly in the other. He put the bowl on the floor at their feet.

“Well, it’s about time!” Burke complained. He watched as the trooper withdrew and slammed the door.

******

Olam banged the door closed harder than necessary, then after a pause, pulled back on it just a hair so that the latch would not engage. If anyone leaned or pushed on the door from the inside, it would swing open freely.

He couldn’t wait until this whole business was over. These two humans made him uneasy, with the way they talked boldly and looked directly at him. Their demeanor was so unlike the humans he had dealt with every day of his life, who scuffled and scraped to bow down to their ape masters. Oh, every now and then he met an uppity human who tried to defy the natural order of the world, but that’s when he or Urko stepped in to right things. Now Urko was trusting him to eliminate these two.

He hurriedly loped out the main door of the jail, into the quickly deepening dark. He walked the path away from the entrance, searching for a hiding spot where he would not be visible, but could see the entrance clearly. Finally, about twenty yards from the building, he ducked behind a stand of bushes. Yes, that would work well.

Now he just had to wait.

******

Galen approached the jail just as Olam hid into the thick shrubs. He carried the bag with the book he had taken from Farrow. After his last discussion with the astronauts, he had gone home and began reading the text of the book. Virdon’s question about going to their time had intrigued him more than he wanted to admit to the desperate human.

What the book had shown him was a world both marvelous and dreadful. That world held a myriad of wonders—the ability to travel through the air and the sea, buildings that reached up to touch the sky, even travel into the heavens to explore other planets and other stars. But the book also spoke of a violent undercurrent that plagued Man’s past, present, and, as he knew now, their future. A history of war, encompassing the entire planet not just once but multiple times. _World Wars_ , they called them. And there were so many that they numbered them to keep track. Galen shuddered at the recollection.

So he had brought the book to show Virdon and Burke, to ask them if they still wanted to insist that everything in its pages was true.

But when he saw the gorilla conceal himself, he stopped short. Past Olam’s hiding place, the main door to the jail stood ajar. Almost as if the guard _wanted_ to allow the two astronauts to escape.

As Galen sidestepped into another thick patch of greenery, a frightening idea began to form in his mind.

******

Burke bit into the raw root vegetable—a turnip? radish? it had a taste unlike anything he’d ever eaten before—and chewed the crunchy mouthful. _What are we, rabbits_ , he through sarcastically. The bowl had contained only a pile of roots and large green leaves. It hadn’t taken long for him and Virdon to finish it all.

He angrily tossed the stem of the item back into the bowl. He needed something more substantial. A nice Cobb salad, covered with bacon and egg and smothered in dressing was one thing, but this handful of pathetic vegetables wasn’t a meal.

He sighed and looked over at Virdon, who was still nibbling at his last bite. “I’m still hungry,” he announced. He missed Virdon offering the limp piece of greenery to him as he rose and stalked over to the door.

“I said, I’m still hungry!” he yelled, raising his fist to bang on the door.

When the door swung open with a squeak of its hinges, Burke startled before whipping around to look at Virdon.

Virdon quickly scrambled to his feet as the door rebounded and began to swing slowly closed. He put out a hand to stop it before it banged against the frame. They both peered obliquely through the small window, but no guards appeared to be anywhere within sight.

“It’s a trap,” Virdon stated flatly.

Burke shrugged. “Well, we’re dead either way.” They wouldn’t be the first prisoners in history to be “shot while escaping”. That trick was old even in their time. But if the gorillas were willing to go to these lengths to kill them, he didn’t hold out a lot of hope about their future prospects.

Virdon nodded his agreement and cautiously pushed the door open once more. He patted Burke on the arm to signal him to follow. He glanced up and down the hallway, then hurried over to the door leading to the outside. Pulling it open further, Virdon poked his head out, suspicion making him wary. He slipped through the door, flattening himself against the wall next to it, partially obscured by a tree. He waved for Burke to join him.

They both froze there for a moment, looking around for the hammer than they knew was about to fall, trying to decide if they could still escape whatever fate the apes had planned for them.

Virdon pointed to the pathway that led into the woods and had just taken a step in that direction when he heard a shout of warning.

“Watch out!” Galen yelled. He saw the muzzle of Olam’s pistol emerge from the bushes, pointed at the two humans. They were about to be gunned down in cold blood.

When they heard Galen’s call, both men broke into a sprint, weaving into the trees and ducking under a tree branch just as it exploded in a shower of bark. The report of two gun shots echoed behind them as they raced into the shadows.

Olam fired two more shots before Galen tackled him from behind. He pushed the gorilla roughly to the ground, trapping the pistol under his heavy form. When Olam twisted beneath him and pulled the pistol clear, Galen made a grab for it. He was still holding onto Olam’s hand over the butt of the gun when it spoke one more time. Olam stopped struggling.

Galen pushed himself off the gorilla’s body, the gun coming away in his hand. Stunned, he sat back heavily on his haunches and stared at Olam’s wide-eyed expression of surprise, frozen forever on his features. He looked down at the gun cradled in his hand. The smell of gunpowder and blood filled his nostrils. He felt like he was going to be sick.

Hearing a noise, Galen looked up, directly into the barrels of two rifles held by the other guards from the jail. Between them, Urko glowered at Galen, his expression a mingle of shock and outrage. Galen dropped the pistol at his feet and swallowed hard.

_Oh, what have I done!_


	7. Chapter 7

_T-minus twenty-seven months—April 1978_

Steve Jones pulled up to the curb in front of the address Pete Burke had slipped him earlier that day.  He grinned as he read the sign in bright neon.

_CenterFolds_

He’d heard of this place, one of the most famous strip clubs in Houston, but he’d never been inside.

A valet rapped on his window, startling him. When he rolled it down, the man smiled at him mysteriously, “I’ll take your keys, sir. Your guests are waiting inside.”

Yeah, Burke had thought of everything. He just hoped his scheming friend had remembered that he had somewhere to be early tomorrow.

From the sidewalk, he could feel the vibration of the music, and when he opened the door, he staggered backward a step at the wall of sound that hit him. The interior of the club was darkened, with just enough light to read the banner strung across the room. _Congratulations Jonesy_.

He stood still only for a moment, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, before Burke trotted up to him and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him out of the doorway.

“Hey everyone, the guest of honor is here!”

A cheer went up through the club, a few higher pitched voices mixed in with those of the guys from NASA. Looking over the crowd, Jones guessed that Burke must have invited every tech from Mission Control, in addition to the other astronauts.

Someone pressed a drink into his hand, and he took a deep draught of the beer to steel his nerves. What in the world ever possessed him to let Pete Burke organize his bachelor party?

Two women wearing halter tops and mini-skirts approached them; one sidled up to Burke, and he slipped an arm around her waist. “Jonesy, this is Lotus, and that’s Crystal,” he pointed at the woman who stood on Jones’s other side. Once introduced, Crystal nodded and pressed herself against him, encouraging him to put his arm around her shoulders.

“C’mon, sugar. Let’s show you a good time while you are still a free man.”

As he was led toward a chair by the stage, he received congratulatory thumps on the back from several of the men. He looked around for Alan Virdon, wondering if their somewhat stodgy commander would come to something like this. He finally spotted the Colonel leaning against the bar, almost unrecognizable in his casual jeans, plaid shirt, and worn cowboy boots. More than any of the rest of them, Virdon looked like he’d fit in with the locals. Virdon caught his eye and nodded to him over his beer, a faint smirk playing across his lips.

His attention snapped back to the stage when Burke pushed him down into a chair front and center against the dais. The woman dancing just a few feet away lowered herself to the floor and rolled onto her side so that her well-endowed chest was right at his eye level. She trailed her fingers down the side of one bra-covered breast as she twisted her hips to swing one leg in an arc that brought her booted foot impossibly close to her own head. As her dance continued, she bowed her entire body up from the floor and was suddenly on her feet, spinning away and around a pole.

Beside him, Burke whistled loudly around the fingers he’d stuck in his mouth. One of the waitresses delivered two shot glasses, and Burke pushed one towards him before knocking back his own.

The woman on the stage was slowly wiggling out of her short, tight skirt to reveal a sequin covered thong beneath it.

Yeah, Michelle was going to kill him if she ever found out about this. And then she’d flay Burke alive.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur, although at one point, he realized his chair was now _on_ the stage, and the dancer was using _him_ as a prop. As she rubbed and gyrated on and around him, he could smell the coconut body oil that made her skin glisten. When the song was over, he staggered down the stairs to an equally drunk Burke who slung an arm around his neck.

“Hey, most of the guys have already headed out. Let’s get some air, okay?” Burke’s voice was slurred and sloppy.

The two wove their way toward the door and out into the warm spring night. Burke leaned back against a large potted plant, his hands locked on the rim as he tilted his head back further and took a deep breath. Jones grabbed one of the poles supporting the protective awning and swung around it.

“Hey, Jif, look. This place has poles _everywhere_.” He took a couple of quick steps and jumped in the air, letting his momentum carry him as the dancers inside had done. Except he missed putting his feet back down and ended up sliding down to sit on the concrete.

Burke burst out laughing, but his expression grew more somber as he brought his watch up with exaggerated care and squinted at it.

“Oh crap. Three in the morning. We gotta get you home so you can get some beauty sleep for tomorrow.”

“Shit, Jif, I’m not sure I can drive right now,” Jones complained plaintively from the ground. To prove his point, he let go of the pole and fell flat on his back.

Burke chuckled again, then pushed himself away from his own support, swaying dangerously in the process. “I don’t think that valet is going to give me my keys back either, man.”

“All right, you two, let’s get you both home.” Alan Virdon stepped away from the wall to the side of the entrance where he’d been standing in the shadows. He should have been home himself hours ago, but he’d stepped outside to use the payphone to let Sally know he was going to stay to see Burke and Jones home safely.

“Alan!” Burke laughed and threw an arm around the older man’s neck. He leaned in to whisper loudly. “Jonesy’s too messed up to drive. I’m gonna hafta take him—”

Virdon pulled a face while digging in his pocket for his car claim. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” He handed the plastic chit to the valet, while trying to keep Burke from falling flat on his face. “We’ll take my car.”

Burke patted Virdon on the chest. “You’re a real pal, pal,” he giggled.

“Let’s get Steve off the ground before he starts growing roots, okay?”

Looking over at Jones still reclined on the sidewalk, Burke pulled himself up straighter, trying to look more sober than he was. “I’m on it.”

He walked over to Jones and squatted down, although he had to put out a hand to keep himself from tipping over. He nudged Jones’s shoulder with the other. “Jonesy! Time to go home. Alan’s gonna give us a ride. I’m sure he’s got plenty of room in the back of his station wagon for you to lay down.” Burke tried to stifle another giggle as he pictured Virdon driving a wood-paneled family car.

“Nah, I brought _my_ car,” Virdon called over to the two men as something sleek and low and bright cherry red pulled up to the curb.

Burke twisted a little too quickly, and his legs went out from under him so he ended up sitting on the sidewalk next to Jones. Jones rolled onto his side and raised his head to look at the Maserati Khamsin as the valet hopped out and scurried over to open the passenger door.

“Do you need help with the other two gentlemen, sir?” he asked Virdon.

Virdon slipped a bill into the man’s hand. “I think I can handle them on my own, thanks.” The valet nodded and melted back into the shadows with a knowing smile.

Virdon grinned at his friends’ slack-jawed expressions. “Well, you two jokers ready? It’ll be kinda cozy, but one of you can fit in behind the passenger seat.” His expression turned stern. “But either of you puke on my upholstery, and you’ll be scrubbing the latrine with your toothbrushes. Are we clear?”

******

Galen huddled in his cell and contemplated the disastrous turn of fortune that fate had handed him. He played the moments over and over in his head, the turning points where he could have avoided the cascade of events that had lead to him sitting in jail, accused of murder and treason. If he had not come to see the two humans tonight. If he hadn’t picked up that book after the old man Farrow had been killed. If he hadn’t been so ambitious in wanting the job as Councillor Zaius’s assistant. If, if, if.

Surely by now, his parents must have heard the news of his imprisonment. He thought about them coming to see him in jail and felt his heart leap into the back of his throat. He wasn’t sure which outcome he dreaded more—that they wouldn’t come or that they would. How could he ever face them, tell them what he’d done, what he’d _learned_? How could he make them understand that he’d begun to question everything—including the words of the Lawgiver at the foundation of their society—over a couple of _humans_?

His father Yalu would rage at him, disown and deny him. Besides being very old-fashioned, Yalu had his up-and-coming position in the government to consider. Galen’s mother Ann had always been a little more liberal, but even she would be horrified at what he’d done.

No, perhaps it was better if they didn’t come at all.

A letter. He should write a letter, to at least try to explain to his mother what had happened. That he’d never intended to shoot Lieutenant Olam, that he’d never intended to help the two humans to escape. He just didn’t want to see them slaughtered like animals.

He almost laughed out loud at the irony. Like animals. Most apes considered humans hardly better than animals; at best, they were trainable pets. But now these two had proven that humans could be so much more, and they were instead treated like dangerous animals. And he’d still barely been able to voice the question to himself that their existence prompted; if these humans could be so much more, did _all_ humans have that same potential to be more than slaves and servants? Where apes _really_ superior, if all it took to strip away their veneer of civility was the fear of two humans who were _different_?

He heard the lock to his cell door rattle. As the door swung outward, Galen tried to gather together this wits, to wipe the look of started surprise off his face. Would his parents help him, speak on his behalf to the Council? His father still had considerable influence—

Zaius and Urko stepped into his cell. Urko carried the Farrow’s book, which he’d taken from Galen. Zaius glanced at Galen—a look that held depths of disappointment that Galen couldn’t begin to fathom—then turned away from him and spoke to Urko.

“What are the charges?”

“Murder of my lieutenant. Treason. Aiding in the escape of the two humans.” Before Urko even finished his litany, Galen began shaking his head.

Zaius asked him, “Is this true?”

“I didn’t mean to kill the lieutenant,” Galen said, distraught. “But _they_ planned the escape. _They_ planned to murder the humans.” Galen glared at Urko.

“Is _this_ true?” Zaius turned back to Urko.

“Absolutely not,” Urko denied. Galen’s mouth dropped open, then he snapped it closed again. Of course Urko would lie.

If Zaius suspected deceit on Urko’s part, he didn’t let it show. “If you knew of such a plan, why didn’t you report it to me?” Zaius probed harshly.

Galen made a noise of disgust. “There was no time.”

“He’s a liar and a heretic! We found this book where he dropped it.” Urko handed the ancient tome to Zaius. The orangutan flipped it open to a random page, a look of wide-eyed horror slowly dawning on his face.

“Do you realize that possession of such a book alone is punishable by death?” He asked, as Galen raised his chin defiantly.

“Why, Zaius?” His tone was strident. “Why should truth be against the law?” The book existed. To deny its existence went against every principle Galen had ever considered important. Science, curiosity, honor. If the search to understand the world around them, including the past, was censored, how could they ever hope to chart a clear path for the future?

Zaius forced his gaze back at the book, scanned the page. Galen couldn’t see what picture the orangutan had opened to by chance, but there were enough damning images that any page was just as bad as another. When he raised his eyes to Galen one last time, they glistened with regret for the young ape’s fate. “I’m sorry, Galen. I can do nothing for you.” He snapped the book shut and handed it back to Urko before bolting out the door.

******

“Pete...hold up,” Virdon called when they had gone deep enough into the woods that they couldn’t see the glow of the torchlight around the jail.

Burke skidded to a stop and hunched over with this hands on his knees, sucking air. Virdon pulled up next to him and sat down heavily on a log.

“We can’t keep... going blindly,” Virdon gasped, holding his side where a stitch pulled at the muscles.

Burke straightened up and cocked his head, listening for any sign of pursuit.

“Okay, where to, boss?”

Virdon considered for a moment, his lips pressing into a thin line. “We need more information. We should go into town, see if we can talk to this Zaius and find out where he got that grenade.”

Burke clucked his tongue. “You really are nuts. We just busted out of jail, and you want to go talk to the guy—ape—who put us there!”

“And we’ll wind up right back in jail without any idea where we are going! We need to find a safe haven. It sounds like Zaius is the only one who might have that information.”

For a few moments, Burke was quiet, only the sound of his still labored breathing letting Virdon know where he was in the dark. He groaned in frustration. “I’m not sure who is crazier—you, or me for going along with this. Do have any idea which way it is back to town?”

“Yeah, I think I know the general direction. Once we are there, we’ll just ask somebody for directions.”

“Great. When we find a gas station to do that, I want to pick up some Coke and Slim Jims.”

******

Virdon waited for his intended victim, listening for the squeak of the cart wheels to signal when he should move. As the cart began to pass where he and Burke hid in the shadows, Virdon jumped out and grabbed the unsuspecting man, clamping a hand over his mouth. He pulled him behind the building to face Burke.

“Do you know where an ape named Zaius lives?” Virdon murmured in the man’s ear. The man’s eyes were wide with fright. “Do you?” Virdon shook him slightly when he didn’t answer. Beneath his hand, he felt the head nod.

“I still think you’re out of your mind,” Burke commented, his arms crossed over his chest, trying to look intimidating. He glanced around nervously for the thousandth time. Much as he wanted to high-tail it the hell out of town, Virdon was right. They need some answers about the origin of that grenade. He didn’t think those answers would lead to a way home, but maybe they could at least find a sanctuary where humans were still top of the evolutionary heap. Besides, out of his mind or not, Virdon was still his commanding officer.

“All right. Now, will you take us there?” He shook the man again. “Will you?” Another nod. He looked up at Burke with a raised eyebrow. “Let’s go.”

******

Zaius made the short walk back to town deep in thought, his heart heavy over with decisions he must now make. The two astronauts had escaped; he’d have to see to their recapture immediately. Perhaps if they could be apprehended quickly, that would ameliorate the charges against Galen. He supposed it was too much to hope that the humans would exonerate him completely. He shook his head. Even if the humans said that Galen had had nothing to do with their escape, who was going to believe their word over that of Chief Urko?

When Zaius arrived at his home, he found Ullman tidying up in the living room.

“You want something to eat, sir?” the human asked, instantly attentive to his master’s needs.

“No,” Zaius answered gruffly. “Go to bed, Ullman. I’m going to read for a while.”

“Yes, sir.” Ullman watched as Zaius shuffled to the door to his office, concerned that the elder orangutan seemed sullen. He hoped he had not somehow displeased his master, although with the way he’d hurriedly departed earlier, when a gorilla had arrived with a message, he suspected he was not the cause. He shook his head and turned to finish taking the clean clothes into his small bedroom.

Zaius pushed open the door to his private quarters, feeling every one of his almost sixty years deep in his bones. Galen had shown such promise, and to see an intelligent young ape, son of a well-respected family, with his life in ruins over a momentary lapse in judgment made him despair for the future.

The shadows hung thickly in the corners of the large chamber, lit only by a large candle on a pedestal near the desk. But even in the scant illumination, Zaius could see the door to his cabinet sitting wide open. The very same cabinet he had vowed earlier that evening to find a way to lock.

He rushed over and lifted the lid to the box holding the last grenade. It was empty. He turned to call for Ullman to raise an alarm. But a voice from the shadows froze him in his tracks.

“Hold it.” The two renegade humans stepped from the doorway to a storage room. “Don’t try to leave, or I’ll throw this thing and blow you to pieces.” The blond one held the grenade, and behind him trailed the dark-haired one, carrying a large stick as a weapon, a coil of rope slung over one shoulder. “Cooperate and we’ll tie you up. They’ll find you in the morning.”

“What do you want?”

“Where did you get this?” Virdon pointed at the grenade.

“A human!”

“Who?”

“He didn’t live long enough to tell me his name,” Zaius stated bluntly.

“Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know.”

The human didn’t like that answer. His eyes narrowed. “Look, I’m warning you.”

“I know. Or you’ll destroy me, as your kind once destroyed its world.”

Burke spoke up. “What do you mean?”

“Your science and machines,” the ape spat the words out as if they were poison. “Very few know your history, and very few will ever know. And your cities! Death and destruction! We don’t want them! We don’t even want their _memory_.”

“Oh, my God,” Burke breathed as the awful truth sunk in.

“Yes. You did it to yourselves, as you would do it again. That human was caught trying to sneak into the city. And yes, I had him killed, as I will have you killed someday. As I must have poor Galen killed.”

Virdon’s head snapped up. “Galen?” he asked in alarm.

“The infection you carry is fatal.” Zaius replied mysteriously. “Galen’s association with your kind has been unhealthy for him.”

“Where is he now?” Burke demanded.

Zaius looked back and forth between the two, his brow wrinkling in confusion. “In the cell you so recently vacated. He’ll be tried for treason tomorrow.”

Virdon and Burke exchanged a resigned look. They would have to go back.

******

_T-minus thirty-six months—July 1977_

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Donald Gregory, Director of Flight Crew Operations here at NASA. Today I’m proud to introduce you to the crew for the _Hyperion_ mission, which will travel to the Alpha Centauri star system to investigate the planet discovered orbiting the smaller of the two stars.” Gregory leaned on the podium.

“Mission Commander Lieutenant Colonel Alan J. Virdon, US Air Force.”

“Pilot Captain Peter J. Burke, US Air Force.”

“Mission Specialist Major Stephen T. Jones. US Air Force.”

When Virdon had first met Burke and Jones the week before, he knew right away that they would make a good team. After working with a lot of different ground crews and twice before on mission teams for NASA, Virdon felt like he had a pretty good sense for telling right away if a team was going to gel or not. And he had a good feeling about these two.

He’d read their personnel jackets, looked over their military records, their physical and psychological evaluations, their academic backgrounds. Both men were young, although Jones was a couple of years older than Burke. Both had impressive academic records. Jones had a master’s degree in planetary science from MIT, earned after he’d been decorated on his first tour in Southeast Asia. Burke had graduated from Michigan State with a double major in astrophysics and aeronautical engineering after starting college a year early, then completed a tour of duty in the Middle East before entering NASA. He was likely to get promoted to Major before the mission launch.

Virdon smirked, thinking about the scuttlebutt that didn’t make it into the jacket, that he’d heard around the program. Burke, in particular, already had a reputation as a hot-dog; he spent a lot of time at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico as a test pilot. Brash. Impulsive. Flaunted authority. The psych eval warned of volatility, but Burke’s flight record bespoke of skill that verged on divine gift.

Virdon could handle a little volatility.

He was the first to arrive in the conference room the brass had assigned for their initial meeting, which was otherwise empty at his insistence. He wanted to meet them alone to suss them out.

Jones arrived next, looking a little shell-shocked as he tugged nervously at the blue jumpsuit denoting his new status. He carried a thick folder of technical data on both the planet and the equipment designed to probe it from orbit. After dropping it on the table with a solid thunk, he shook Virdon’s outstretched hand with a firm grip.

“Steve Jones,” he introduced himself, despite _Jones_ being sewn in a patch on the chest of his suit.

“Alan Virdon. Grab a cup of coffee if you want before we get down to business.” He pointed to the coffee machine in the corner with a full, fresh pot.

Virdon glanced at his watch a couple of minutes later, just as it hit the hour. He was considering getting himself a second cup of coffee when Burke strolled into the room. Like Jones, he was dressed in a crew jumpsuit with his name blazoned in black letters. Even though he’d had to come through a maze of corridors to get to the conference room, a pair of dark aviator sunglasses still covered his eyes. Virdon’s reflection ballooned on their surface as he reached forward to shake hands.

“Pete Burke.” He pulled the glasses off one-handed and hooked them into the collar of this suit. Virdon smiled, genuinely amused by the aura of cool indifference Burke was projecting. Yeah, he could see where Burke’s hot shot reputation came from.

Jones gave Burke’s hand a warm shake, then pointed a finger at him. “Aren’t you the one the ground crews call ‘Jif’?”

Burke winced but let out a small chuckle. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Jif?” Virdon raised an eyebrow. “Like, ‘see you in a jif’?”

“I wish,” Burke said with a sigh. “Actually, it’s because of my initials. PB. Let’s just put it this way, it’s better than the first call sign they tried to pin on me. No way was I going to let _anyone_ call me ‘Skippy’.”

******

The walk from Zaius’s house back to the prison was the longest ten minutes of their lives. Virdon pulled Zaius along by one arm; Zaius kept glancing over at the other hand curled around the grenade. When the jail came into view, Virdon warned with a little shake, “No funny stuff. Just announce yourself as you normally would and get the guard to come out.”

When they approached the door, Zaius shook off Virdon’s grip as the astronauts flattened themselves against the wall on either side. Virdon held the grenade up slightly as a reminder to Zaius of the consequences should he betray them. Burke dropped his coil of rope on the ground and adjusted his grip on his make-shift club.

“All right. Now,” Virdon hissed.

“You’re fools, you know that?” Zaius kept his voice low, but he couldn’t help proclaiming his consternation. “You could have been out of the city by now.”

“He saved our lives,” Burke growled, tight-lipped. “You expect us to leave him here to die?”

That was exactly what he expected them to do. “You’re strange, humans.”

“Enough!” Virdon commanded. “Now.”

Zaius stepped closer and knocked on the door. He looked through the small window at the empty hallway. When no answer was forthcoming, he glanced back at Virdon.

“Again.”

The orangutan tried one last plea. If this situation went badly, _he_ was the one who could end up dead. “You can still escape.”

“Again!”

He pounded on the door harder this time. When a gorilla appeared in the hallway, he called out, “Councillor Zaius! Open the door!”

“All right. Back. Back!” Virdon waved at him to step away from the door, to give Burke room to maneuver once it opened.

Zaius backed up cautiously, watching the two humans as their attention shifted to the rattling of the door lock. “I need some help out here.”

When the door opened and the gorilla emerged, Burke swung his improvised weapon, catching the guard in the chest and knocking him backward. Taking advantage of the commotion, Zaius turned on his heel and tried to run. He only got a few paces before Virdon charged after him and tackled him from behind. As they struggled, Virdon lost his grip on the grenade, and it tumbled to the ground. Zaius rolled toward it, scrabbling for it in the dirt. Virdon jumped to his feet, stepping lightly on Zaius’s outstretched hand before scooping up the grenade.

Zaius looked up at the human in defeat as Virdon backed away a few steps. He motioned toward the open door of the jail. “Let’s go.”

Once they were inside, Burke and Virdon tied up and gagged the two apes in an unoccupied cell. Burke searched the gorilla guard, but came up empty handed. “Alan, no key!”

“Look again.”

As Burke turned back to go through the guard’s pockets again, a voice came from one of the other cells. “Who is it? What’s happening?” Virdon rushed out and over to the other door. Galen peered out through the tiny window.

“Who’s got the keys to your cell?” the astronaut’s voice was tense and urgent.

Galen looked perplexed. “What are you doing here?” he asked stridently.

“The keys! Who has them?”

“Well, Urko, I suppose. He, er...a new rule. What are you doing here?” Galen asked again as Burke came into view.

Burke’s expression was grim. “No key, Al.”

Virdon considered for a moment, then reached into the pouch on his belt. “All right. Get to the far corner of your cell, on the floor, face down, with your hands over your head,” he instructed Galen as he pulled out the grenade.

“Why?”

“Never mind why. Just do it!”

Galen caught a glimpse of the explosive device as Virdon squinted at the controls. With a worried whine, the chimpanzee scurried away from the door.

Virdon twisted a couple of protruding studs, pushed a button. When he set the grenade on the floor against the cell door, his junior officer was already sprinting back into the cell where they’d left Zaius and the gorilla guard. Virdon pulled the door mostly closed behind him to protect them from the blast. A moment later, the explosion rocked the jail.

Back in the hallway, the door to Galen’s cell was in splintered ruins. A few small pieces of wood burned in the doorway. Virdon jumped over the flames and pulled Galen upright and out of the cell. The three of them, all now fugitives, hurried out of the jail and into the cover of night.

By the time Urko and the other two guards reached the ruined cell, then ducked out the main entrance, the clearing in front of the jail was empty. The three escaping prisoners were gone without a trace.


	8. Chapter 8

_Earth Time: Scheduled Return Date—December 15, 1980_

“ _Hyperion_ , this is Titan Base. Do you copy?”

Dead air. Static. White noise.

“ _Hyperion_ , this is Titan Base. Do you copy?”

Ken Mattingly, commander of the base on Saturn’s moon Titan, nodded at the communications technician to continue broadcasting the call to _Hyperion_. While he held the young man’s eye, he made a pressing motion with one hand, a signal to keep his voice calm and business-like. That _Hyperion_ hadn’t answered the first attempt to contact them was not yet cause for alarm. Although they had expected a signal to come in from the ship over an hour ago, it wasn’t unreasonable that in a five-month, nine-light-year round trip, the astronauts could have encountered delays. Hell, he’d have been shocked as shit if they _weren’t_ delayed.

But there was procedure to be followed. An hour after expected first contact, they were to broadcast a signal for five minutes. And then repeat every hour until the interstellar ship came into range and established communications.

He sat back down in his chair, set on a platform that allowed him to oversee the miniature control room. His own monitor beeped, indicating an incoming signal from Earth.

_Update requested on status of reacquisition of_ Hyperion _._

He sighed and rubbed a hand through his thinning hair. He understood Mission Control’s impatience. The families of the three astronauts— _no_ , he reminded himself, _two, only two of them have families_ —sat in an observation room overlooking Mission Control in Houston, anxiously awaiting word of their loved ones. When they’d established the base on Titan, he’d served on the flight crew with Alan Virdon, and remembered the pretty little powerhouse he was married to. Sally. She’d be there, along with their son, waiting to hear the voice of her husband come over the radio, announcing their return.

He tapped out a reply to Earth.

_No contact yet; broadcasting hourly signal per procedure._

Once they were acquired by Titan Base, _Hyperion_ still had to travel for five more days before they reached Earth. But this outpost was the first check-in point, the first knowledge anyone would have that the mission was on its way home.

He said a silent prayer that they answered soon.

 

“What does that mean, exactly, that you don’t know where they are?” Sally Virdon asked, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. Because behind the anger, there was only fear. She reached over and grabbed hold of Michelle Jones’ hand. Michelle’s other hand rested on her swollen abdomen, rubbing absently.

Robert Crippen, flight director for the _Hyperion_ mission, had a pained look. “The ship was expected to return to the solar system at fifteen hundred hours central time. Reacquisition of communications with Titan Base should have been possible as soon as they disengaged the Hasslein drive and came out of hyperspace.”

“I know all about what was _supposed_ to happen, Bob. So tell us what _actually_ happened.”

Crippen scrubbed a hand over his face. He wished he had answers. He wanted nothing more than to tell these two women that he knew _exactly_ what had happened to their husbands, that it was all just a technical glitch. But he just didn’t know.

“Well, there are several possibilities we are looking into. They could have a malfunction in their communications system; they could be there, but unable to answer our signals. We’re sweeping the area of space around their projected flight path for the hallmark radiation that would be generated by their ship’s engine. But that’s a big area of space to cover. If they are there, it could still take a while for us to find them.”

“And if they... if they aren’t there?”

“The ship could have been delayed for any number of reasons. They had a beacon they could drop in case of trouble, but we’ve there’s been no sign of that signal, either. So whatever happened, they didn’t feel it was serious enough to...to...,” he let the thought trail off, as the look on Sally’s face told him that she had already thought of the other alternative—that there had been no time to launch the beacon when catastrophe struck.

“But you are going to keep looking, right Bob? Because I know Alan. And if there is any way, any way at all, that he can get the three of them home,” she paused and gave Michelle a meaningful look, “that’s exactly what he’s going to do.”

“Of course we’re going to keep looking, Sally,” Crippen patted her knee reassuringly. “Mattingly is out there on Titan right now, heading up the search. And you know Ken—once he’s got his teeth into something, he’s not gonna give it up.”

He looked at both woman, their faces strained as exhaustion painted dark smudges under their eyes. Michelle Jones, almost seven months pregnant, needed to rest. He glanced down at his watch. Twenty-three hundred hours. Chris Virdon slept on a sofa down the hall in Crippen’s own office, where he had gone only after extracting a promise to wake him the second they heard from his father. Natalie Jones waited at home with her grandmother, slumbering in peaceful oblivion to the drama unfolding at Johnson Space Center.

“Look, I’ve arranged for someone to take you both home.” He held up a hand to forestall Sally’s protest. “There’s nothing you can do here, and we’ll contact you the moment we know anything. We’ll give you a direct line to my office, so you can pick up the phone anytime you want and get an update. But Alan and Steve will both have my ass in a sling—pardon my French—if I don’t take good care of their families. So go home, and we’ll stay in constant contact.”

But it would be months before they detected any signal from the ship.

******

Burke stared up at the stars, trying to pick out any familiar shapes. A thousand years shouldn’t have made _that_ much difference in the position of the distant stars, but there were just so _many_ of them. Without the pervasive light pollution of the late twentieth century, the Milky Way stood out as a ribbon of illumination across the sky, making it difficult to pick out the usually brighter points that formed the constellations he’d grown up seeing.

He thought back to what he’d said to Virdon in Fallon’s shelter the first night after the crash. As a kid, he’d struggled to see _any_ stars through the smog and incandescent glow that hung over Jersey City. Now, he couldn’t see the constellations for the all the stars. He smirked, thinking, _kinda like not being able to see the forest for the trees._

Trees. He was already so very sick of trees and of sleeping on the ground. Right now, what he wanted more than anything was a hot shower, a soft bed, decent clothes, and a thick steak. They’d been on the run for five days since engineering Galen’s escape from prison. At Virdon’s insistence, they were slowly working their way back to the ship, travelling in a round about way, laying false trails when they could, in hopes that Urko and Zaius wouldn’t figure out where they were going. They’d had to change direction several times to evade gorilla patrols, hopefully adding to the impression that they were interested only in getting as far away from Central City as they could, with no specific destination. With no sign of pursuit for the last two days, they began to circle back around toward Chalo; Galen reluctantly agreed only after Virdon’s repeated reassurances that the apes were not hot on their trail.

The sound of Virdon’s restless shifting broke the stillness of the night. Tomorrow, they would try to get to the ship so Virdon could retrieve the flight record. _If_ the crash hadn’t damaged it. _If_ the apes hadn’t destroyed it. And _if_ they recovered it, it was still little better than wishing on a shooting star. Unless...

Burke whispered the question, knowing that Virdon was still awake. “Do you think they’ll send out a rescue mission?”

For a long time, Virdon was silent, and Burke was beginning to think that he was asleep after all. “I don’t know, Pete. I guess it depends on whether Jonesy activated the beacon.”

The unspoken thought that ran through both their minds was that any attempt at rescue would probably just result in more stranded astronauts. Assuming that another ship hit the same time anomaly they did, there was still no guarantee that it would bring that ship to the same year. For all they knew, the ship carrying the astronauts Zaius had talked about arriving years ago _had_ been their rescue mission, but had crashed on this crazy version of Earth _before_ they did. And those astronauts were dead. Like Jonesy was dead.

Like everyone they’d ever known was dead.

The sobering thought cut through him like a fresh wound. In recent years, he had not been close with his family; he’d always been too busy with college and then his career to return to New Jersey very often. But he tried to imagine how Virdon felt, to have a wife and kid who had lived out the rest of their lives and died a thousand years ago, each never knowing what happened to the other. Eventually, he and Virdon and Jones would be declared dead, even if NASA never found out what happened to them. Would his family mourn him? Put up a headstone over an empty plot in Arlington?

He shook himself to dispel the maudlin thoughts. But he understood a little more Virdon’s desperate need to cling to any hope, no matter how remote, that they could find a way home. Even if he didn’t share that hope, he knew—knew instinctively, in a way he’d never be able to explain to anyone—that that small grain of hope was all that kept Virdon going. So until Virdon accepted their fate, Burke was going to do whatever it took to keep his commanding officer—his friend—from surrendering to his grief.

Now he just needed to convince himself.

******

 “Can you figure that kook?” Burke leaned one hand against the curved ceiling inside the ruined ship, the other hand on his hip. He watched his friend struggle to open the compartment that held the ship’s flight record. Virdon twisted the small lever back and forth, the muscles in his forearms bulging as he tried to work the jammed latch open. “He really thinks that flight record is gonna get us back home.”

“How much longer?” Galen asked nervously, as he shifted from foot to foot in the doorway behind Burke. He’d been increasingly agitated over the last day or so since Virdon made it clear that he wanted to return to the ship.

“About five, ten minutes maybe,” Virdon answered. Once he got the flight disk, he hoped to scavenge through the other components on the ship, see if they could find anything useful to take with them.

“When are you going to give up that pipe dream?” Burke asked with a touch of bitterness in his voice. While he understood Virdon’s need to hold onto hope, he wished just a little bit of his pragmatism could rub off on his friend.

“When I see my family,” Virdon’s tone brooked no more argument. Behind his back, Burke rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.

Galen broke into their disagreement with a frustrated huff. “They’ll be looking for us here. I’m surprised they haven’t come already.” He turned and looked out the hatch again.

“It’s been a week, Galen. They probably stopped looking by now.” Virdon could feel the latch starting to give. Just a little bit more....

“Zaius? Urko?” Galen hissed loudly. “They’ll never stop.” He shook his head. “Never!” He scrambled up the ladder out of the ship, ignoring the shocked looks from both astronauts.

With another eye-roll and a put-upon shrug, Burke clicked his tongue and went after the distraught chimpanzee. Galen sat on the wing of the ship, his legs dangling over the side, his face buried in his hands. Burke squatted next to him on the wing and laced his hands together.

“You okay?” he asked.

After a moment, Galen nodded, then raised his face to look at Burke with red-rimmed eyes. The last week had taken a harsh toll on the chimpanzee, and Burke felt guilty that he hadn’t noticed it earlier or been more sympathetic.

“I’m sorry,” Galen replied. “You see, uh, I had family, too.” He nodded toward the ship where Virdon still struggled to free the disk that represented his last, best hope of returning to his family. “I had friends, too.”

Burke nudged Galen’s shoulder with his knee. “You still have friends.” And was a little surprised to find himself genuinely meaning it.

“Hmm,” Galen nodded again, then forced a smile for Burke. “I know. I just—”

He stopped with a startled look, and his head whipped around toward the back of the ship.

“What?” Burke asked, growing alarmed.

“Horses! Horses!” Galen pulled his feet up onto the wing and began to stand. Burke turned in the same direction and searched for the source of the sound that Galen’s sensitive ears had heard before his. “Only apes have horses!” The chimp’s voice rose in panic.

Burke stuck his head into the opening to the ship. “They’re coming, Alan! We have no time!”

Virdon still wrestled with the door to the recorder housing. “Just... just about there.” Something let go with a metallic snap, and the latch turned freely. He threw open the panel to reveal a small magnetic disk sitting amid a clutter of exposed circuitry. “There’s the baby.” He grabbed the smooth metal and closed his fingers around it like a drowning man grabbing a rescue line.

“Come on, Alan! Let’s go!” Burke could now hear the pounding of the hoofs that signaled their approaching doom. Galen was making distressed noises and shuffling from foot to foot with the urge to flee.

Dodging nimbly through the wreckage, Virdon reached the hatch and leapt up the ladder and through the opening. Galen and Burke ran down the wing to the nose of the ship and jumped off into the soft dirt, Virdon following right behind them. They disappeared down the berm into the cover of the forest just moments before a group of apes on horseback rode into the clearing.

******

Zaius, Urko, and three gorilla soldiers had ridden hard from Central City. Zaius finally convinced Urko that the astronauts would eventually return to their ship. Urko thought they would be stupid to do so, and while he didn’t put much stock in the intelligence of these humans, even he didn’t believe these humans were that foolish. But then again, they’d returned to the prison after their escape, despite the risk of being recaptured, to free the chimpanzee Galen. Humans helping an ape they barely knew. He shook his head. Unheard of!

But Zaius believed that Virdon, in particular, would feel an overwhelming drive to return to his ship. The brief conversation Zaius had had with the two humans in his office convinced him that their insatiable curiosity would leave them no other course. They may even have hidden weapons in their ship that they would use against the apes.

It was the threat of weapons that convinced Urko to make the journey to Chalo. Zaius just hoped that Urko’s stubborn recalcitrance didn’t cost them the humans.

When they rode into the clearing, Zaius saw the humans’ ship for the first time. He felt the icy grip of fear clench in his gut. The technological marvel was quiescent, but he almost felt at any moment that the engines could roar to life, burning everything around it with the fires of destruction.

“See if they were here, and then take care of the ship,” Zaius commanded the three soldiers.

With rifles at the read, the soldiers dismounted and climbed into the ship. After a moment, they emerged again.

“They aren’t here, Zaius.”

“Destroy it! I don’t want it to exist another moment longer!” Zaius wheeled his horse and turned away from the monstrosity, unable to bear looking at it anymore.

Urko shook his head in disgust and began to direct his soldiers to load the kegs of gunpowder they’d brought with them into the ship.

******

Virdon, Galen, and Burke ran through the woods, each of them glancing over his shoulder in turn to look for any sign of pursuit. Virdon thought he remembered the way back to Farrow’s secret cave, but as the landscape rushed by, he wasn’t sure. And they didn’t dare risk stopping to get their bearings.

As they broke through the underbrush into a small clearing, the unmistakable sound of an explosion rent the air. They stopped, exchanging shocked and startled expressions. Galen lowered himself onto a log slowly.

“The ship?” Burke’s tone said he already knew the answer.

Virdon nodded. “I’m afraid so.” He turned the metallic disk over in his fingers, then reached around to tuck it safely into his pouch.

Burke slumped to the ground, with exhaustion or a sense of defeat, he wasn’t sure. Probably both.

“All right. Which way, Galen,” Virdon asked, his urge to take command of the situation surfacing. “It’s your world.”

“It’s yours, too,” Galen replied with a sad look. He glanced over at Burke. “And yours.”

Virdon stood. “All right. Let’s just start walking.” He slapped Burke on the shoulder as he passed him.

Burke and Galen exchanged looks of weary resignation that they would share many, many more times, then got up and followed in Virdon’s wake.

******

_Earth Time: One Year After Scheduled Return—December 1981_

Ken Mattingly watched the video monitor of the signal from Earth. And even though the signal was delayed over an hour, he put on his white dress uniform and, along with some of the other senior personnel on the base, stood in formation as they watched the memorial service for the three astronauts who had been lost on the _Hyperion_ mission. Of the three, he’d known Virdon personally, as they’d been crewmates on the mission to establish Titan Base. Burke and Jones, he knew by reputation. In any case, they were colleagues, and he felt their loss deeply.

Especially since he had been the herald of that particular bad news four months ago.

 

_“Sir?” Mattingly looked up from his computer at the technician, an earnest young woman named Susan Tsao, who stood in the doorway. “You...you better come see this, sir. We’re picking up an anomalous signal.”_

_Mattingly frowned, his brow creased as he stood and followed Tsao out of his office into the main command center. Leading the way to the communications array, she picked up a printout and held it out to him._

_“I thought at first it was just random noise; we’ve been picking up a lot more blips since that comet smacked into Neptune. Background radiation has been off the charts since then, and the sounds coming in are almost like this weird, technopunk music—” She trailed off when he leveled a glare at her. “Anyway, it’s definitely an artificial signal, sir.”_

_Looking over the frequency profile of the signal, the line between his eyebrows deepened. “What’s the vector of origin for this signal?” he asked, suspecting that he already knew the answer._

_“Fourteen hours, thirty-nine minutes by... negative sixty degrees and fifty minutes,” she read off the numbers haltingly, then blanched. “It’s coming from the direction of Alpha Centauri, sir.”_

_Mattingly pulled out the chair at the communications console and indicated Tsao should sit. “Pull up the specs on the distress beacon for the_ Hyperion _mission and run a comparison to this signal.”_

_He leaned over Tsao’s shoulder as she rapidly keyed the request for the data into the computer. The computer beeped with the answer. “It’s a match, sir. The signal is_ Hyperion’s _beacon.”_

_Scrubbing a hand down his face, Mattingly took a deep, steadying breath. After all this time. “All right.” He began issuing orders in a crisp, carefully controlled tone. “Get our Lagrange satellites locked onto this thing and triangulate. I want to know exactly where this signal is coming from.”_

_“Yes, sir,” Tsao responded automatically as she was already entering the commands into the computer._

_He resisted the urge to pace behind the woman’s chair as she worked. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the console. He didn’t have to wait long._

_“The signal is coming from... from just inside the orbit of Uranus.” She shook her head. “I’m running it again to double check.”_

_Uranus! If the beacon was that close, they should have been picking up its signal for months before this._

_Tsao frowned. “I... I don’t understand how it’s possible, but the signal’s origin is inside the solar system. And it’s traveling this way, on a course toward Earth.”_

_“Get me JSC on a live feed.”_

 

The information from the beacon had been downloaded and analyzed by the geniuses at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Mattingly didn’t know all the specifics of what the record had shown, but he knew even before the announcement came down that the ship had been destroyed. Now, four months later, almost a year since the mission was due to return home, NASA held a service memorializing Virdon, Burke, and Jones, who were declared lost.

Mattingly had sent a personal letter to Sally Virdon—he was sure one of many she received—expressing his condolences. Alan Virdon had been a damn fine astronaut. And he made a promise to come visit when he was finally rotated back to Earth.

The live feed shifted briefly to Sally Virdon and Michelle Jones as they were presented with the folded flags that had hung in state in the White House atrium in effigy for their husbands. Chris Virdon sat next to his mother, looking far older than his twelve years in his dark funereal clothes. Jones’s children were not present; the four year old girl and not-quite-one-year-old son were too young to understand the austere proceedings.

The third flag went to a dark-haired woman whose resemblance to Burke declared her a close relative. His sister, probably. He remembered from the obituary that Burke had two sisters and an elderly mother.

Mattingly snapped a salute, mirroring the servicemen in the video feed, as the quavering, mournful sound of Taps was played on a bugle.

 

Sally Virdon had rarely looked up at the night sky in the last year. Alan had tried to teach her how to pick out Alpha Centauri AB, but it was only visible for a few weeks at the height of summer just above the southern horizon in Houston. He’d had a little more luck pointing out brightly glowing Saturn when he’d been gone for months on Titan. But now she couldn’t tell one planet from another at night.

Chris, on the other hand, devoured astronomy. For his last birthday before his father left for deep space, he’d received a real telescope. He’d watched faithfully every night during the months they had awaited Alan’s return. When the ship had failed to materialize last year, Chris spent hours looking through the instrument; Sally suspected that Chris somehow believed that as long as he searched with his limited capabilities, his father would be found. Then the awful day when they finally discovered the beacon from the ship, the one that would only be deployed in the event of serious trouble. Since then, the telescope languished in the corner of his bedroom, collecting dust.

No, she couldn’t look up in the sky anymore without the entire sparkling spectacle turning into a blurry, watery mess.

But tonight, on the one-year anniversary of when the ship should have returned, she put on a sweater against the chill night air, poured herself a glass of wine, and went out to the chaise on the back deck. She leaned back against the cold fabric of the cushion with a shiver, and looked up at the bulbous moon. Just a few days past full, its light, combined with the city glow, drowned out most of the stars. But that didn’t matter. The only star she would want to see was far below the horizon at this time of year.

The last few days had been horrible, probably ranking right up there in the top three horrible periods in her life, all of which could be counted in the last year. She separated each on in her mind, neatly categorizing it, because it was the only way should could deal with the strain.

First there was the Not Knowing. When Alan’s ship had not returned when it should, she spent months going through every conceivable stage of grief, some of them multiple times as she tried to hold onto hope in the face of hopelessness. Denial—Alan would find a way to come home. He just would. He _had_ to. Anger—what had he been thinking, going on such a dangerous mission when he had a wife and son at home who needed him? Bargaining—if she could just keep believing that he was still ali... still going to come home, then it would happen. One day he’d just pop up, with the wildest tale to tell about where they’d been. Depression—she thought she had been depressed while she didn’t know her husband’s fate. It was only later that she realized she had not yet experienced its true depths.

Then came Knowing. When the distress beacon had been recovered, they learned that the ship had broken up while on an emergency trajectory back to Earth. They’d _been on their way back_ when the ship had been destroyed. And suddenly, as much as she hated Not Knowing, she absolutely despised the finality of Knowing. But she’d had to hold it together. For Chris. For Michelle, who in the midst of it all had delivered a beautiful baby boy, who she immediately, without thinking, named Stephen. Sally had ended up being Michelle’s substitute labor coach.

Still, in the middle of the night, when she woke from a nightmare soaking with sweat and swallowing down the scream on her lips, when the bed was big and empty and comfortless, she let the despair have free rein. Those were the nights when she cried out her grief into her pillow, trying to keep the sobs that wracked her quiet enough not to wake Chris.

But this week.... This week, NASA finally decided that it was time to put Alan, Steve, and Pete—or at least their spirits—to rest. They’d held an elegant memorial service at Johnson Space Center. The President had even been there, presented them with flags that had hung in the White House for the past year as a reminder that the country—the world—was holding its breath and wishing fervently for the three men to return home safe and sound. Many of the directors at NASA had made speeches—John Young, Bob Crippen, even Senator Glenn had returned and reminisced about the beauty and danger of space. So many people had expressed their condolences, an unbelievable number of people who had never even met them, but felt moved by their human connection.

And now, now she was supposed to feel acceptance. Find closure. Move on. NASA would make sure that she and Chris would want for nothing and expedited as much of the legal process as they could. There were still a few details to be taken care of; at least she didn’t have to wait the seven years that would have usually been required for a death in absentia declaration. The data on that damned beacon had obliterated any thought that her husband might have somehow survived.

Alan Virdon was declared... dead.

She still had trouble thinking in those terms. Because the last time she’d seen Alan, he’d been so vibrant, ready to embark on the most exciting journey of his life.

There was no body, no image of destruction that would make his death _real_ to her. The memorial service was a start. When the headstone in Arlington was unveiled in a few months, that would be a very visceral declaration of finality. But until then, she would have to find her own way to mark the moment in her mind.

She looked up at the sky and raised her glass in salute to the cold, unforgiving moon before taking a generous draught of the wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where possible, the names of real people leading up to 1980 have been used in the flashbacks. Walter Cronkite retired as the anchor of the CBS Evening News in early 1981. Dan Rather, his successor, was Chief Correspondent up until that time. Parts of Cronkite’s speech at the launch of Hyperion were lifted from his coverage of the launch of Apollo 11.
> 
> Most of the positions at NASA are also as accurate as I could make them. The Test Director is responsible for astronaut training for a given mission; however, the names of real people in that position are difficult to find. Jake Rousch is an homage to a college friend who did go on to work at Johnson Space Center. John Young was Chief Astronaut from 1974-1987, as well as commander of the first shuttle mission STS-1 in 1981 and STS-9 which launched Spacelab in 1983. I promoted Robert Crippen, pilot on STS-1, to Flight Director for Hyperion, since there was no active Flight Director in 1980. Ken Mattingly, famous for his role during Apollo 13, commanded shuttle missions STS-4 in 1982 and STS-51-C in 1986. Instead, I made him the commander of the base on Titan. 
> 
> I am indebted to my mother-in-law, who worked as an administrative assistant for the highest levels of NASA in Florida during the Apollo era, for information about astronaut candidacy, training, and pre-mission procedures. And my father-in-law provided first-hand knowledge about the USAF and piloting.
> 
> All other dazzling theories and jargon regarding the mechanics of faster-than-light space travel are my own, for better or worse, based on my 25-year-old degree in planetary science.


End file.
